FBI went without SWAT on deadly raid

Gunman likely was able to see agents with home security system

The two FBI agents ambushed Tuesday in Sunrise — killed by a gunman who apparently saw them coming — were serving a warrant without the SWAT team backup that even many local police departments use in those situations.

The nation’s top law enforcement agency does not require a SWAT team when serving warrants, law enforcement sources told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Instead, the agency assesses the likelihood of violence when deciding whether to send its own SWAT team or request one from local police.

Neither happened Tuesday when agents showed up at the home of David Lee Huber, a loner and trained computer scientist, before dawn in connection with

a child pornography investigation. Huber apparently detected them with a home security system and fired a high-powered gun through the door, killing veteran Special Agents Daniel Alfin and Laura Schwartzenberger.

In contrast, the Broward Sheriff ’s Office and the Fort Lauderdale Police Department both employ the more heavily armed and armored SWAT teams when serving a warrant that requires them to force their way into a home, representatives of those departments said.

The Miami-Dade Police Department, the largest in the southeast U.S., requires SWAT teams when serving any narcotics warrant unless police commanders explicitly request not to use them, a spokesman said.

The 15 FBI agents and one Davie detective who tried to serve the warrant at Huber’s home in the sprawling Water Terrace apartment complex had no SWAT team on site and no SWAT vehicles, local police told the Sun Sentinel.

That may have left the FBI team vulnerable, according to one police expert.

“Civilians can be more dangerous now because of the internet and combat videos that teach them tactics and techniques that give them an advantage that we didn’t see decades ago,” said attorney Richard Diaz, a former Miami Dade Police Officer and Narcotics detective.

“So all of a sudden it’s not LeBron James against a little league basketball player. It’s LeBron James versus Dwayne Wayde.” he said. SWAT teams, Diaz said, return the advantage to the police.

Besides Alfin and Schwartzenberger, three other agents were hit by Huber’s bullets. Two were hospitalized and one was treated at the scene.

Only after shots were fired and two agents lay dead or dying in the front doorway was SWAT backup called for, according to local police departments involved in the operation. SWAT teams from Sunrise, Fort Lauderdale Police and the Broward Sherriff’s Office all responded once the shooting started, representatives for those departments confirmed.

The FBI Miami Field Office did not respond to questions about why a SWAT team was not deployed during the raid. George Piro, special agent in charge of the office, said at a news conference Tuesday that the raid had been carried out with diligence and planning.

“We thoroughly researched and meticulously plan to take into account any threats or dangers,” Piro said.

But that same morning, another team of local law enforcement officers, led by the Broward Sheriff ’s Office and belonging to the same anti-pedophile task force as the FBI team, carried out a predawn raid in Coral Springs, with very different results.