Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche has rescinded the Biden Justice Department’s policy that tightly restricted when law enforcement agents executing a search could take the exceptional step of bursting into a home without knocking first.
The 2021 policy required that agents only use “no-knock” entries when they had good reason to believe knocking could put them or others in imminent danger of physical harm. Top supervisors and the U.S. attorney in the area had to approve “no-knock” entries for government searches that didn’t meet that requirement.
A DOJ memo, which was obtained by MS NOW, signed by Blanche and issued to top supervisors and U.S. attorneys on Monday states “no-knock” entries are now permissible for a much broader set of searches, including not just when law enforcement fear safety risks, but also when there is a risk that evidence could be destroyed. Blanche said he was eliminating unnecessary restrictions.
“We must allow our brave men and women in law enforcement to carry out their duties to the fullest extent permitted by law,” the Blanche memo said.
Former prosecutors told MS NOW that the argument of evidence being destroyed could be presented in nearly every search, making a “no-knock” entry justifiable in many scenarios going forward.
DOJ spokesperson Chad Gilmartin said the department is “bringing back a common sense approach to law enforcement designed to ensure officer safety and protect the integrity of criminal investigations.”
He added, “This policy fully accords with the parameters of the law and the protections of the Constitution while reversing a Biden-era policy decision that unduly hindered and unnecessarily endangered law enforcement agents.”
The Biden-era policy was launched in the wake of police shooting and killing of Breonna Taylor. Louisville Metro Police officers fatally shot Taylor during a botched, late-night drug raid at her apartment in March 2020. Officers forced entry without a warning knock, prompting her boyfriend to fire a warning shot, believing it was a home invasion. Police entered the apartment, shooting 32 rounds, and striking Taylor six times.
Vanita Gupta, the former associate attorney general under the Biden administration, called Blanche’s rescinding of the policy “disturbing” and said it was meant to both protect police and public safety and adopt best practices for such searches.
Gupta, who had led the creation of the new policy with Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco, said the restrictions placed on “no-knock” entries after September 2021 were the product of an extensive, yearlong review of best policing practices in which federal agents and state and local law enforcement weighed in and generally supported the changes.
“This is a step backwards for policing — rather than forward — when law enforcement has often prided itself on embracing best practices,” Gupta told MS NOW.
Gupta said she was concerned with the about-face on searches of homes in the wake of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have conducted their immigration raids recently in Minnesota, Chicago and elsewhere.
“It’s particularly significant given the ICE tactics we’re seeing in the streets — so counter to the way policing has evolved and improved over the last several years,” she said.
Carol Leonnig is a senior investigative reporter with MS NOW.