Certainly, we could not countenance the use of such a device as a routine matter. However, we also recognize that we must review the agents' actions from the perspective of reasonable agents on the scene, who are legitimately concerned with not only doing their job but with their own safety. The district court found that the agents knew that Mr. Myers had a history of illegal drug trafficking, and had spent time in federal prison for a fire bombing incident, although they were unsuccessful in learning of the details of the incident. The circumstances justifying the use of a flashbang device in this case are similar to those in Myers . The agents had reason to believe that Eugene Kirk had a number of loaded firearms at his disposal, and that he had threatened to kill officers if they entered his home again to serve a search warrant.
Officers obviously ignore such threats at their own peril.
Moreover, Kirk had a prior conviction for a violent weapons offense and a reputation for violence. Finally, the purpose of the warrant was to gather evidence of drug trafficking. Guns and drugs are a volatile combination. An officer executing a search warrant could reasonably have believed that use of a distraction device would be likely to lessen the possibility of injury by allowing police to subdue Kirk without further violence. The dangers the officers believed they faced in this case, however, were no more routine than those we found sufficient to justify the use of a distraction device in Myers .