A Pulaski County circuit judge on Monday validated the search warrant authorizing a July 2014 police raid that ended with a Little Rock man charged with trying to kill four officers.
Patrick Fitzgerald Johnson, 44, disputed the legality of the warrant that police obtained for the nighttime, no-knock raid on his South Washington Street home.
His attorney, Steve Smith, argued that police did not have sufficient grounds to justify using aggressive tactics like activating a flash-bang explosive device during the Independence Day intrusion into his home.
Smith said police made too much of a confidential informant's description of a home surveillance system at the residence when officers petitioned District Judge Alice Lightle for permission to enter the home.
Drug dealers might like the surveillance, but having video surveillance does not mean a tenant is doing anything illegal, Smith told the judge.
If investigators had checked their own police records, Smith said, they would have seen that Johnson was having problems with an "unwanted intruder," which would explain his need for video surveillance.
The warrant application also misstated Johnson's criminal history and propensity for violence, Smith said.
Judge Leon Johnson rejected the challenge to the warrant's legality, siding with deputy prosecutor Sean Strode, who acknowledged that the mere presence of a home surveillance system is not sufficient grounds for a raid.
But police had presented Lightle with more evidence than that, he said.
They also had evidence that Patrick Johnson had sold crack cocaine to a confidential informant hours before the raid, which, combined with the video system, met the judicial threshold of "reasonable suspicion" of wrongdoing necessary to obtain a warrant, Strode argued.
The police informant had earlier bought crack at the house, according to police testimony.
Police say Johnson fired at least one shot when the Special Weapons and Tactics team raided the house about 9 p.m., July 4, 2014.
Johnson is charged with four counts of attempted capital murder involving SWAT members Jeff Holt, Edwin Hollingsworth, James Jenkins and De Chance Ketzscher. Each count is a Class Y felony carrying a potential life sentence.
Johnson also faces four Class D felony counts of aggravated assault, accused of menacing three other SWAT members -- Scott Miles, Matthew Thomas and Reginald Ridgell -- with a gun. A .357-caliber pistol was seized in the raid. His trial is scheduled for Aug. 19.
He also faces drug and gun possession charges from the raid, but Smith argued that the small amount of contraband seized by police -- 0.75 gram of crack, 1.7 grams of marijuana and one pill each of oxycodone and Ecstasy, also showed his client was no threat worthy of an armed incursion. That's only enough for personal use, Smith told the court.
The earlier drug sale that prompted the raid involved 3.5 grams of crack, purchased for $140, and known on the street as an "eight ball" because it weighs an eighth of an ounce, narcotics detective Debra Attkisson, who obtained the warrant, testified.
Court records show Johnson has a 2008 conviction for felony theft, drug possession and misdemeanor domestic battery. Sentencing information was not immediately available.
In July 2002, he pleaded guilty to two counts of unlawful discharge of a firearm and was sentenced to five years in prison.
Court records show that Johnson, following an argument at the home of his ex-girlfriend on Sheffield Street, fired shots into the house from his car, with one of the shots narrowly missing an infant in the residence.
Metro on 08/04/2015