No Charges for DEA Agent Who Shot Innocent Grandmother During Botched Raid

By Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Nov. 10, 2014

Manchester, NH — A DEA agent who shot an innocent grandmother during a botched raid on her home will not face any charges.

New Hampshire Attorney General Joseph Foster announced last week that the shooting was accidental, therefore no charges will be filed against the agent involved.

The search warrant was served as part of a series of 13 raids to investigate several people allegedly selling prescription painkillers without government authorization.

Lillian Alonzo, 49, was shot through the arm with the bullet lodging in her torso in her Beech St. apartment on Aug. 27.

She survived the wounds, however the bullet remains lodged in her ribs and she has limited function of her arm.

According to the official investigation, the handgun of DEA Agent Michael Connolly accidentally discharged when the agent tried to kick Alonzo’s bedroom door in.

The report states that Connolly kicked the door, but it would not open. The third kick ended up breaking through the door, at which point Connolly's foot was caught, causing him to fall back.

As he stumbled backward, he heard a gunshot. Once he regained his feet, Connolly saw his left arm was locked and the handgun looked extremely black.

"He saw his trigger finger along the slide of the gun. He did not remember feeling recoil. "¨ He felt time slow down and wondered if the shot he heard was from him. He wondered how that happened," the report reads.

As Connolly regained his hearing, he realized that his fellow officers thought they were being shot at. Connolly holstered his gun and told his fellow officers he had an accidental discharge.

According to Daniel Nunez, Alonzo’s son, based on the layout of the room, it is impossible that his mother could have been shot by someone facing the door.

Alonzo’s apartment was subsequently torn to shreds in fruitless attempt to locate drugs. "They should give my mom the help she needs. They destroyed everything; they tore up the apartment," Nunez said. He said the DEA should apologize for its actions.

Alonzo is still trying to recover from the injuries sustained from the gunshot. According to Nunez, Medicaid is refusing to pay for Alonzo’s physical therapy, which she needs to regain control of her arm.

"She says she was innocent," Nunez said his mother told him after the shooting. She then added: "I don't know why they came to my home."

Nunez said his mother has nothing to do with drugs and doesn’t even drink alcohol."¨ "That woman has killed not even a cockroach," he said

Alonzo’s daughters and her two grand-children were also in the home at the raid, luckily the children were not shot.

According to the Union Leader, the raid coincided with the arrest of two of Alonzo's adult daughters and others on trafficking charges involving oxycodone. The family has said no drugs or weapons were found in Alonzo's Beech Street apartment.

Alonzo, the sole resident of the Beech St. apartment, has not been charged with anything and federal prosecutors have said that charges against her are unlikely.

Unfortunately this is just another terrible side effect of the state’s attempt to control personal choice, otherwise known as the war on drugs.

Law enforcement, with the blessing of law makers, lay waste to the lives of others who they claim to be “protecting” in some relentless, immoral, and completely futile attempt to regulate what people can and can’t do with their own blood and flesh.