The DEA busted into the home of a 49-year-old woman named Lilian Alonzo looking for a grow op or selling operation, while Alonzo was home watching her grandson. Not knowing what was happening, Alonzo thought she was in a home invasion, and grabbed her grandson to protect him. When they saw her reach for something outside of their line of vision, the DEA shot at her. Thankfully, she lived and the baby was unharmed for the most part, but she will spend the rest of her life with a bullet in her torso, and her baby grandson will have permanent hearing damage as a result of the shot.

Even worse, the DEA found nothing during the raid, not even evidence of cannabis use. The raid was a result of someone tipping the DEA that they had seen $50,000 sitting in Alonzo’s home, even though having money is not a crime and should not be admissible as a reason to search. There were also no large sums of money discovered during the raid, nor anything else that could suggest illegal activity ever took place there.

It is deplorable that such a thing could happen in 2014, with the move towards a healthier drug policy taking hold nationwide. This is evidence that simply calling for better policy is not enough; there need to be protections put in place so that drug raids cannot happen because of hearsay or because of reports that someone has a lot of cash or other admissible evidence. Otherwise, tragedies like this towards innocent citizens will occur on a regular basis.