Three Houses Away: FBI Raids the Wrong Home, and the Eleventh Circuit Reverses Qualified Immunity

Martin v. United States, No. 23-10062 (11th Cir. Oct. 7, 2026)

TL;DR

An FBI SWAT team conducting an early-morning operation against a suspected gang member mistakenly raided an innocent family's home, three houses away from the intended target and on an entirely different street. Agents forced entry, detonated a flashbang grenade, and handcuffed an occupant before realizing they had entered the wrong residence.

The SWAT team leader blamed his personal GPS device for directing him to the wrong house. However, the evidence raised substantial questions about whether he had conducted a proper preoperational site survey, verified the target's location, or taken reasonable precautions to ensure his team was entering the correct residence.

The Eleventh Circuit held that, viewing the disputed evidence in the plaintiffs' favor, a reasonable jury could conclude that the team leader failed to make reasonable efforts to identify the correct residence. Because the Fourth Amendment requirement was clearly established, the court reversed the grant of qualified immunity to the FBI agent.

In an unusual split outcome, the court also upheld the dismissal of the plaintiffs' tort claims against the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), concluding that existing Eleventh Circuit precedent protected the government through the discretionary-function exception.

The takeaway: A valid search warrant does not give officers authority to search whichever residence they mistakenly identify as the target. Officers must make reasonable efforts to confirm that the location they intend to search is actually the location authorized by the warrant. GPS technology, operational briefings, and tactical planning do not automatically substitute for verifying the correct address.

Facts

In 2015, the FBI initiated Operation Red Tape, a federal investigation targeting violent gang activity in Georgia.

The investigation culminated in a 30-defendant indictment on October 12, 2017. Federal authorities subsequently obtained arrest and search warrants, including warrants involving suspected gang member Joseph Riley and his residence at 3741 Landau Lane in southwest Atlanta.

FBI Agent Lawrence Guerra served as the SWAT team leader responsible for executing the operation.

On October 18, 2017, at approximately 5:00 a.m., an FBI SWAT team approached a residence in a suburban Atlanta neighborhood.

The team forcibly breached the front door and immediately deployed a flashbang grenade. Armed agents wearing tactical equipment entered the residence and proceeded to the bedroom.

Inside were Hilliard Cliatt, his then-fiancée Curtrina Martin, and Martin's seven-year-old son.

Cliatt and Martin sought shelter in their bedroom closet as the agents entered. SWAT personnel located Cliatt, pulled him onto the bedroom floor, and handcuffed him. Martin's young son was awake in his bedroom across the hall and terrified by the commotion.

There was just one problem.

The FBI was in the wrong house.

The residence belonged to the Cliatt-Martin family at 3756 Denville Trace, not the suspected gang member at 3741 Landau Lane.

The homes were approximately three houses apart, located on different streets, and separated by an intervening cross street.

As the operation unfolded, Guerra noticed that Cliatt did not have the facial and neck tattoos appearing in the photographs of the intended suspect.

Guerra questioned Cliatt about his name and address. The information did not match the warrants. Another SWAT team member located mail bearing a different address.

Once the team recognized its mistake, the agents promptly departed. They subsequently located Riley at the correct residence and arrested him as he attempted to flee.

Guerra later returned to the innocent family's home, provided FBI contact information, and documented the damage to the front door.

The GPS explanation

Guerra maintained that his personal Garmin GPS device had directed him to the wrong residence.

However, the plaintiffs challenged that explanation and questioned whether he had adequately prepared for the operation.

There were significant physical and geographical differences between the residences.

The intended target was located near a four-way intersection, while the plaintiffs' home was near a three-way intersection. The homes also differed in color, exterior stonework, windows, landscaping, and roof features.

Although neither house displayed its address number directly on the building, both had numbered mailboxes. Street signs also distinguished the two locations.

Additionally, investigators possessed photographs of the intended target, maps of the neighborhood, operational intelligence, and technology capable of identifying the suspect's location.

The record indicated that Guerra had access to Google Maps and updates providing the suspect's geolocation approximately every fifteen minutes on the morning of the operation.

Nevertheless, the FBI team entered the wrong residence.

Perhaps most troubling was what happened to the GPS device.

Guerra discarded his personal Garmin GPS shortly after the raid and never provided an explanation for doing so.

The plaintiffs also identified conflicting testimony and missing records concerning Guerra's claimed site surveys and preoperational drive-by.

These circumstances became central to the subsequent litigation.

Issues

The Eleventh Circuit considered several significant legal questions:

1. Whether the FBI SWAT team leader violated the Fourth Amendment by directing the execution of valid warrants at the wrong residence without making reasonable efforts to verify the location.

2. Whether clearly established law prohibited the conduct, thereby defeating qualified immunity.

3. Whether the United States could be held liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for the mistaken raid, including claims involving false arrest, false imprisonment, assault, battery, trespass, negligence, and emotional distress.

4. Whether the FTCA's discretionary-function exception protected the United States from liability, notwithstanding the potentially unconstitutional conduct.

Holding

The Eleventh Circuit reached two different conclusions.

As to Agent Guerra: The court reversed the district court's grant of qualified immunity. Viewing the evidence in the plaintiffs' favor, a reasonable jury could find that Guerra failed to take reasonable precautions to identify the intended residence before directing the SWAT team to enter.

The court concluded that the constitutional duty to make reasonable efforts to avoid such mistakes had been clearly established since at least 1995.

As to the United States: The court affirmed dismissal of the plaintiffs' FTCA claims. Under binding Eleventh Circuit precedent, the challenged operational decisions fell within the discretionary-function exception to the federal government's waiver of sovereign immunity.

The case was remanded for further proceedings.

Importantly, reversing qualified immunity did not establish Guerra's ultimate liability. It meant that the plaintiffs' constitutional claim against him could not be dismissed on that ground at summary judgment.

Reasoning

1. A search warrant does not authorize entry into the wrong residence without reasonable verification.

The court's Fourth Amendment analysis centered on a fundamental principle: Officers executing a warrant must make reasonable efforts to identify the place they are authorized to search.

The controlling precedent was Hartsfield v. Lemacks, 50 F.3d 950 (11th Cir. 1995).

In Hartsfield, officers possessed a valid search warrant but executed it at the wrong residence.

The officer responsible for directing the operation had previously visited the intended location, yet failed to adequately verify the address before leading other officers inside.

The Eleventh Circuit denied qualified immunity because the officer had failed to make reasonable efforts to avoid searching the wrong home.

That decision relied on the Supreme Court's analysis in Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79 (1987), addressing the requirement that officers reasonably identify the place intended to be searched.

Applying those principles to Guerra, the court concluded that the similarities between Hartsfield and the present case were substantial.

In both incidents, officers entered a residence other than the one authorized by the warrant.

In both, the intended and mistakenly searched residences were distinguishable.

And in both, evidence supported the conclusion that reasonable precautions could have prevented the mistake.

The Fourth Amendment does not demand perfection from officers executing warrants. Reasonable mistakes can occur.

However, a mistake is not automatically reasonable merely because the officer acted in good faith or possessed a valid warrant for another location.

The constitutional question is whether officers made reasonable efforts to identify the correct location under the circumstances.

2. The court examined what Guerra actually did to verify the address.

One of the most significant portions of the opinion concerned the disputed evidence about the FBI's preparation.

Guerra maintained that he conducted a site survey before the raid and drove past the intended target on the morning of the operation.

The plaintiffs presented evidence challenging those assertions.

Guerra initially declared that he conducted an October 16 site survey with another FBI agent, Gregory Donovan.

However, Donovan's GPS data did not establish that he visited the target residence during the relevant period.

Guerra subsequently corrected his testimony, explaining that he could not remember which agent accompanied him.

Guerra also claimed that he conducted a drive-by with Agent Michael Lemoine shortly before the raid.

But Lemoine's available cellphone location records did not reflect travel to either residence before the raid, despite Lemoine's testimony that he customarily carried his phone during site surveys.

Additional discrepancies involved photographs allegedly taken during Guerra's site survey.

The opinion noted that the photographs lacked supporting metadata and had not been properly uploaded into the FBI evidence management system. Other photographs used during operational planning had been taken by another agent on an earlier date.

The plaintiffs further challenged Guerra's account of seeing a black Chevrolet Camaro in the driveway of the intended target.

According to the operational materials, the vehicle associated with Riley was actually a white Nissan Maxima.

None of these facts individually established constitutional liability.

Collectively, however, they supported an inference that Guerra had not conducted the site verification he claimed.

Because the case was before the court on summary judgment, genuine factual disputes had to be resolved in the plaintiffs' favor.

For purposes of that analysis, the court proceeded on the assumption that Guerra had not conducted the claimed site survey or preoperational drive-by.

That factual premise was critical to the court's decision.

3. Tactical planning is not necessarily the same as confirming the target.

The FBI presented evidence of substantial operational preparation.

Guerra had reviewed the operational order and SWAT addendum, attended an operational briefing, and organized the tactical execution.

He selected a staging area and assigned responsibilities to team members.

The operation included plans for the entry formation, breaching responsibilities, shield deployment, and assignments for clearing different areas of the residence.

However, the Eleventh Circuit distinguished tactical preparation from actually verifying the location of the target.

The court questioned whether these preparations established that Guerra had reasonably identified the correct house.

A team can have a detailed operational plan, a complete entry formation, properly assigned personnel, and extensive equipment—and still execute the warrant at the wrong address.

In this case, the court concluded that the planning evidence did not eliminate the factual disputes concerning Guerra's failure to independently verify the target.

This distinction is especially important for teams conducting simultaneous warrant operations, high-risk entries, narcotics investigations, and planned arrests.

The sophistication of the tactical plan does not replace the need to identify the correct target.

4. GPS technology does not automatically establish reasonable reliance.

Guerra's explanation for the mistaken entry was that his personal GPS directed him to the wrong residence.

But the court examined the availability of additional information that could have helped him identify the correct location.

The target and the plaintiffs' residence were on different streets. The intersections were different.

Their architectural features were distinguishable. Both residences had numbered mailboxes.

And the FBI possessed additional maps, photographs, and geolocation intelligence.

The court observed that modern technology made the failure to identify the correct location particularly difficult to justify.

When comparing Guerra's conduct to the events in Hartsfield, the court emphasized the significant technological developments between the earlier 1991 raid and the 2017 operation.

Guerra had access to GPS navigation, Google Maps, and recurring geolocation information concerning Riley.

Nevertheless, the team entered the wrong home.

The court did not establish a categorical rule prohibiting officers from relying on GPS or requiring every available verification technique in every operation.

Instead, it considered the information reasonably available and whether the officer made sufficient efforts to avoid a foreseeable mistake.

The existence of reliable verification tools may become relevant when evaluating the reasonableness of an officer's failure to identify the correct location.

5. The discarded GPS and missing records raised additional concerns.

The court also considered evidence surrounding Guerra's disposal of the Garmin device.

The record established that Guerra threw away the GPS shortly after the mistaken raid without explaining why.

The district court had declined to draw the plaintiffs' requested inferences from this evidence, partly because it believed they had not properly pursued spoliation-related relief.

The Eleventh Circuit disagreed with that approach.

It explained that the destruction of potentially relevant evidence can support an inference unfavorable to the party responsible for its destruction.

The court distinguished the question of whether a party is entitled to a formal spoliation sanction from the separate obligation to consider reasonable factual inferences when evaluating summary judgment.

Here, the discarded GPS was not the only problematic evidence.

The plaintiffs also identified missing cellphone records, inconsistencies in the claimed preoperational site surveys, and conflicting testimony concerning the target location.

Taken together, that evidence supported the plaintiffs' version of events sufficiently to preclude summary judgment on qualified immunity.

The court did not conclusively determine that Guerra intentionally destroyed evidence to conceal misconduct. Nor did it decide the ultimate credibility of the competing accounts.

Those matters remained subject to further proceedings.

Nevertheless, the missing and discarded evidence had meaningful consequences for the court's analysis.

6. Qualified immunity did not protect the agent at summary judgment.

Qualified immunity protects officers performing discretionary governmental functions unless their conduct violates clearly established constitutional law.

The Eleventh Circuit recognized that executing arrest and search warrants falls within an FBI agent's authorized responsibilities.

Consequently, the central question was whether Guerra violated a clearly established constitutional right.

The court returned to Hartsfield.

That case had established that officers executing a warrant at the wrong residence must make reasonable efforts to avoid the error.

The court noted that the residences in the present case were separated by several houses and a cross street. They had different architectural features and distinguishable surroundings.

Additionally, evidence viewed in the plaintiffs' favor suggested that Guerra had failed to conduct basic verification despite possessing substantial information about the intended target.

Under those circumstances, the court concluded that a reasonable jury could find Guerra's actions inconsistent with the Fourth Amendment's requirement to reasonably identify the premises intended to be searched.

Because Hartsfield had clearly established that principle decades earlier, Guerra was not entitled to qualified immunity on the summary judgment record.

This was not a determination that every wrong-house entry violates the Fourth Amendment.

Rather, the court found that the evidence supported a failure to make reasonable efforts to prevent the mistake, making qualified immunity unavailable at this stage.

Street Takeaways

1. Verify the location before executing the warrant.

A valid warrant authorizes officers to search the premises it describes, not a nearby residence mistakenly believed to be the target.

Officers responsible for warrant execution should make reasonable efforts to confirm the location through available identifying information, including street addresses, house numbers, photographs, physical characteristics, and other reliable intelligence.

2. Do not confuse tactical planning with target verification.

A detailed operational plan does not establish that the correct location has been identified.

Before execution, supervisors and entry teams should have a clear understanding of the intended location and the information used to verify it.

3. GPS is a tool, not an automatic substitute for independent verification.

Navigation applications and mapping systems can be valuable, but they are not infallible.

Where circumstances permit, officers should compare electronic directions with observable address information and other available intelligence before entering a residence.

4. Preoperational reconnaissance can be extremely valuable.

A site survey or drive-by may help identify distinctive exterior features, potential access points, nearby residences, and discrepancies between the planned target and the actual location.

This decision does not require a site survey in every warrant operation. It does, however, demonstrate the legal importance of reasonable efforts to avoid a mistaken entry.

5. Supervisors and team leaders should ensure the target is identified.

The officer directing a tactical operation may bear responsibility for the decisions leading officers to a particular residence.

Team leaders should consider establishing clear verification responsibilities and procedures for resolving discrepancies before execution.

6. Preserve operational records and supporting information.

Navigation records, electronic maps, location data, surveillance photographs, operational plans, and notes may become important evidence if a warrant operation is later challenged.

The discarded GPS and missing location information in this case significantly complicated the agent's qualified immunity defense.

7. A mistake is not necessarily unconstitutional, but it must be reasonable.

The Fourth Amendment does not impose strict liability every time an officer mistakenly searches the wrong residence.

The critical inquiry is whether officers made reasonable efforts to identify the location authorized by the warrant.

A preventable error accompanied by little or no meaningful verification may fall outside constitutional protections afforded to reasonable mistakes.

8. Qualified immunity and governmental tort immunity are different defenses.

The FBI agent lost qualified immunity at summary judgment, while the United States remained protected from the FTCA claims.

Those results are not contradictory. They arise from different legal frameworks.

Officers and supervisors should not confuse an agency's immunity from civil tort liability with a determination that the underlying conduct was constitutionally permissible.

Disclaimer

This article is provided by Stratvos Group for law enforcement training and educational purposes only. It is not legal advice and does not establish departmental policy. Court decisions are fact-specific, and the applicable law may vary by jurisdiction or change over time. Officers should consult their agency's policies, training, and legal advisors when applying legal principles to operational decisions.