Widow terrified by cops' mistake

Chicago Tribune ^ | September 7, 2003 | Ray Quintanilla

[MrLeRoy]

[...] "I wouldn't want anyone to go through this. It was frightening," Jackson, 73, said Saturday, a day after more than a dozen officers burst into her home in the middle of the night.

"I asked them, `What did I do?' And they told me to get out of the way because they were looking for drugs," said Jackson, who lives in a first-floor apartment in the 4100 block of West 21st Street.

Police now say the warrant should have listed a similar address on 21st Place--one block south.

"It's unfortunate, but there was an apparent mix-up," said David Bayless, a Chicago Police Department spokesman. "It looks like the warrant was served to the wrong house."

The incident unfolded at 3 a.m. Friday while Jackson, who lives alone, was asleep. She said police knocked open her wrought-iron gate, pried open her steel door, then rammed an ornate wood door with a heavy object--causing a glass window to pop out and break on the floor.

Jackson said she ran outside in her nightgown because she thought someone had broken in. [...]

[MrLeRoy]

Wod_list (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/involved?group=124) ping

[biffalobull]

"I wouldn't want anyone to go through this. It was frightening," Jackson, 73, said Saturday, a day after more than a dozen officers burst into her home in the middle of the night.

Whatever happened to the "Land of the Brave and the Free?"

[Baseballguy]

Jackson said she ran outside in her nightgown because she thought someone had broken in.

The police did. Sue Sue!!!!

[Britton J Wingfield]

It's for the children.

[Marauder]

This happens just a little too often to allow for "honest mistakes." How about "arrogance" or "hubris"?

[MrLeRoy]

... or "police state"?

[MrLeRoy]

It takes a village, you know.

[WestPacSailor]

[Tired of Taxes]

She fared better than the man years ago whose home was raided for drugs in another address mix-up: That poor man died of a heart attack when police raided his home by mistake.

[MineralMan]

There are just too many of these situations out there. Innocent folks have been killed in some of them. Every police department needs to institute a very careful double-check system when serving warrants like this.

That they do not already is very, very troubling. 21st Street and 21st Place? Every cop there knows that there are two 21st address possibilities. Does nobody ask to make certain that they are breaking down the door to the correct place? Apparently not.

At its extreme, we have Atlanta, which has so many Peachtree addresses, on streets, avenues, circles, places, etc., that I'm amazed that any warrant with a Peachtree address is ever served correctly.

We've just got to get this straightened out!

[Joe Brower]

[vin-one]

she's lucky they didn't blow her away,
Grandma drug dealers, sheesssh

[jmc813]

WOD Ping

[GovernmentShrinker]

Actually I think the publik skoolz are the main problem. Police officers are almost exclusively public school graduates. The public schools' curriculum is big on diversity, self-esteem, the joy of socialism, etc., but getting the right answer isn't on the menu. Fuzzy math teaches how to work together to come up with creative approaches to a problem, but getting the one specific right answer doesn't count. Any wonder the graduates of these programs can't get an address right, or even grasp before it's too late, why it's a big deal to make sure each and every digit is correct?

[MrLeRoy]

LOL!

[jmc813]

I guarantee you that if Chicago actually respected its residents' RKBA, this sort of thing would stop REAL quickly.

[MineralMan]

"I guarantee you that if Chicago actually respected its residents' RKBA, this sort of thing would stop REAL quickly."

Sorry, but that's nonsense. If you hear "Police! Search Warrant!" as your door is being broken down by mistake, the very worst thing you can do is to assert your RKBA. You will be dead, instanter. You cannot fight off an Police insertion team. Period.

Instead, Chicago residents need to be exerting their right to complain, and loudly, about this kind of mistake. This old lady needs to hurt the Chicago Cops where it really hurts, in the pocketbook.

If you hear your door being broken down and you hear the word Police! or Warrant!, your very best move is to stand very still, with your arms out and palms open. You can react later, and you'll still be alive.

Grab your Mossberg, and you'll be dead.

[ArrogantBustard]

You can react later,

While the gang with the fake Police outfit is raping you, your wife, your daughter, and your dog.