San Diego Police Department over the last year has made use of an explosive device purchased from a German manufacturer that was banned in property searches by the nation’s largest police department, according to documents obtained by Voice of San Diego.
Flash-bang grenades, which have been implicated in dozens of death, disfigurement and injury incidents around the country, are utilized by some SWAT teams to temporarily confuse suspects when looking for drugs, contraband or evidence unannounced. The New York Police Department stopped using the grenades for use during property searches in 2010, following the death of a woman who suffered a heart failure after NYPD officers deployed one of the devices.
But many departments continue to use the devices. San Diego police exploded flash-bang grenades 45 times last year. Police departments in Southern California vary in their reliance on the devices. SDPD used flash bangs five times more per capita than Irvine Police Department, but half as much as Anaheim’s police force. Los Angeles Police Department officials did not respond to multiple inquiries about how often they uses the devices.
SDPD has purchased tens of thousands of dollars worth of the devices, according to departmental receipts. A tally provided by the department earlier this year showed it had at least $22,314.50 worth of the devices in stock.
SDPD used all of the grenades from 2023 in live situations. A department spokesperson confirmed none were used for training purposes.
“Quite frankly, SDPD is just behind when it comes to this,” San Diego defense attorney Ally Keegan told Voice of San Diego. “NYPD is the largest law enforcement agency in the country, and they have managed to go without flash bangs since 2010.”
New York limited its use of flash bangs after the death of Alberta Spruill, who died from a heart attack after police deployed a flash bang inside her home, while serving a no-knock search warrant.
That search warrant, Keegan says, was to look for guns and drugs in the home. The NYPD found none.
SDPD officials argued they aren’t behind at all. They say they are in step with most departments across the country and that flash bangs help them de-escalate situations. They also said they conduct rigorous training and their use of flash bangs had never led to the injury of an officer or civilian.
“Anytime law enforcement loses a less lethal de-escalation tool, we have fewer options to prevent a deadly-force situation,” Lt. Daniel Meyer wrote, stating that the main point of the devices was to divert attention, rather than causing harm. “These devices keep community members, officers and suspects in the area of their use more safe. SDPD does not train to throw flash bangs blindly. Officers are trained to place flash bangs within a visually cleared 3’-5’ area (depending on the manufacturer.) If there is not a clear / safe area, the flash bang is not deployed.”
Flash bangs can be extremely harmful, according to a 2015 report by ProPublica. That report stated that at least 50 Americans, including officers, had been injured, maimed or killed by the explosives, including people in Sacramento, Oakland, Modesto and Los Angeles.
No-knock warrants and no-knock entries are two of the most common — and controversial — uses of flash bangs. A no-knock warrant allows police to enter a residence without announcing their presence. California has banned no-knock warrants, but not no-knock entries. Officers are allowed to make a no-knock entry, if they judge it necessary in the moment. Cops may choose to use a no-knock entry when they believe it will prevent a person from escaping, injuring someone or destroying evidence.
SDPD cannot seek no-knock warrants, since they are banned in California.
“While not seeking no-knock warrants is commendable, that doesn’t necessarily preclude law enforcement from entering a property without knocking and announcing themselves first. In California, when there are ‘exigent circumstances’ … law enforcement can justify not seeking a warrant at all,” Keegan stated.
SDPD officials said they do not keep track of how often no-knock entry techniques are used in exigent circumstances.
“We make every attempt to notify occupants prior to entering a property for the safety of everyone involved,” wrote SDPD spokesperson Ashley Nicholes in an email to Voice of San Diego.
Avoiding a delay after a knock and an announcement of police presence seems to have in the past been enough of a part of the department’s culture that it made it into footage from a 1986 Geraldo Rivera special. In that special, Rivera highlights a grainy scene that appears to show an SDPD entry into a property with no delay after announcement, with the host intoning that “surprise and shock are the best protection” during law enforcement searches.
Los Angeles Times coverage from a decade and a half later, in 2000, also shows that at that time, there was at least some use of no-knock and quick-knock techniques.
Police like flash bangs because the element of surprise helps to ensure suspects can’t destroy evidence.
“[Police sometimes say] ‘the two sounds we don’t want to hear are gunfire and a toilet flushing,'” said Justin Brooks, a law professor at the University of San Diego, referring to worries about suspects disposing of drugs before police are able to enter.
“SDPD takes great caution and adheres to the law when serving search warrants,” Nicholes stated, arguing that the term “no-knock raid” could be misleading.
Nationwide, it is “a common occurrence” for police to use the exception for exigent circumstances, says Tamika Moses, an assistant professor of law at North Carolina Central University. And she emphasizes that a knock-and-announce warrant can easily be converted into a no-knock search if these circumstances are cited.
Nationwide, flash bangs are frequently used in no-knocks, but there are other uses for them as well. The devices are often used in circumstances including hostage and barricade situations.
According to Radly Balko’s book, “Rise of the Warrior Cop,” though, nationally, “the vast majority of the time they’re used in the service of warrants for nonviolent crimes.” He also writes that, nationally, flash bangs “are usually detonated before, during, or just after the police break down a door.”
And, he says, no-knocks and flash bangs aren’t even required in most situations where they’re used.
The arrest of Boston crime boss Whitey Bulger, who was thought to have been involved in more than a dozen murders, and who the FBI considered extremely dangerous, is a good example, Balko writes. The agency opted to use a simple ruse to get Bulger into the open, then arrested him without incident. If a man who was “a candidate to go out in a blaze of cop-killing glory” was best apprehended that way, Balko says, there’s a strong argument for getting rid of most no-knock entries.
Bill Nixon was formerly a flash-bang manufacturer and vendor. He told ProPublica that he was concerned police officers were not getting sufficient training before using them.
“I realized that, let’s say this is the perfect device,” Nixon said, “it’s still going to hurt people.” In Nixon’s opinion, the police are wrong to treat flash bangs like less destructive weapons such as tear gas and sound cannons. “It boggles my mind.”
SDPD spokesman Meyer emphasized the department conducts “rigorous training to certify SWAT officers in the use of flash bangs. This training is very effective, and is why since starting to use flash bangs in the 1980’s, SDPD has not injured any suspects, hostages, community members or officers with their use.”
A public records request to the nearest neighboring large city, Irvine, found that police there used only two of the devices in 2023, compared with 45 during the same time by the SDPD. While Irvine is smaller, with 300,000 residents, the tally equates to an SDPD deployment rate per citizen of more than 5 times Irvine’s rate.
Anaheim police, for their part, used the devices six times, which equates to a rate of roughly twice SDPD’s usage during the same period.
The Los Angeles Police Department did not respond to multiple requests for a tally of their device uses in 2023.
Despite the potential for danger, flash bangs are used frequently across the country. Their use is growing, according to an analysis by Grand View Research, at least partially due to more small towns adding SWAT teams, according to Balko.
That pattern translates into a potential for profits. According to the Grand View report, the U.S. flash-bang market is expected to reach $32.6 million by 2030.
Maria Ponomarenko, of the University of Texas school of law, says it’s difficult to draw any conclusions nationally about trends because of a lack of data.
“The reality is that we just don’t know how often no-knock raids are conducted each year,” she wrote to Voice of San Diego. “Last I checked [Utah and Maryland were the only states requiring] agencies to collect and report data on SWAT raids and forced entries.”
Using no-knock entries in California, can harm a prosecution — at least in California.
Some courts have allowed the suppression of evidence in cases where no-knock entries occurred, said Brooks, the USD law professor. On the federal level, there have been moves toward regulation, with Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar introducing a Congressional bill in 2022 to mostly ban the practice of no-knocks nationwide.
The going has been slow, though, with the bill dying in committee before it could reach the main chamber of the U.S. House for debate. The bill had 29 cosponsors in the House. None of San Diego’s representatives were among them.
Patrick Maynard’s writing from 10 countries has appeared in publications including VICE, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Independent and The Baltimore Sun. His story on SDPD use of German flash-bang grenades for Voice of San Diego was reported from Berlin.