Posted on 01/15/2011 4:20:27 PM PST by microgood
SPRING VALLEY, N.Y. (WPIX) — It was a classic case of mistaken identity for a Spring Valley family Thursday when federal agents and police raided their home and reportedly held their teenage daughter at gunpoint.
The father, David McKay, said police dragged his wife, brother-in-law and daughter out of bed, separated him from his family and even threatened to shoot their dog, according to a report in The Journal News.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration had an arrest warrant for a man they believed lived in the Spring Valley family's house, but it turned out he lived a couple houses away.
"You go barging into someone's home with guns and pull them out of their bed, you better make sure you have all your i's ... dotted and your t's crossed," McKay told The Journal News.
The raid was part of drug trafficking investigation that involved over 200 federal and local officers and has so far led to the arrest of 26 people across New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, officials said. The DEA believes they are responsible for distributing more than 1,000 kilograms of marijuana since 2006.
"We sincerely regret that while attempting to execute an arrest warrant for a member of this drug trafficking organization, the innocent McKay family was inadvertently affected by this enforcement operation," Special Agent in Charge John Gilbride said in a statement issued to PIX 11 News.
The DEA did finally arrest the correct person, who, along with the others arrested, was arraigned in White Plains on Wednesday.
McKay's family, meanwhile, has been traumatized from the incident. His daughter suffered from an asthma attack during the raid and was taken to Nyack Hospital.
Those damn Swat creeps again.
So the folks who are collecting evidence and planning to testify in court cannot even find the correct address.
Oppps sorry, our bad. Won’t happen again.
ooops!!
Glad no one was injured. Mistakes like this cost people thier lives.
If the cops did that I my house, with out knocking or identification, I would die in a hail of gun fire and one or two of them would go with me.
Can you imagine the terror they went through.
guys all dressed in black with BIG guns, dragging you out of bed.
BTW, what is this worth on todays settlement market?
I swear to God, when I read that, I thought I had stumbled upon an article from The Onion. Are idiots like these EVER going to be held responsible?
Wouldn’t know if they were for real and that alone would make me have a HA.
Can they be sued?
This seems to more of a recurring Nightmare, there have been several of these screwups reported of late.
What In The Hell is going on in this country???
Way Too Many Trigger Happy SWAT teams out there.
They can sue for damages stemming from false arrest, kidnapping and illegal imprisonment under color of authority. The police will make mistakes but not checking a warrant is inexcusable - as well as not phoning the boss to verify they have the correct location.
Didn’t they start, several years ago, lowering the standards, saying that the testing for law enforcement was “racist”?
If you lower standards, that’s what you get.....but we already knew it.
Welcome to our New World!
Sounds like breaking and entering an occupied dwelling, brandishing a weapon, false arrest and imprisonment, and communicating terrorist threats to me.
“inadvertently affected”
I will never understand how this kind of mistake happens.
What kind of investigation have these LEO’s conducted if they can not even correctly identify the correct house that a suspect lives in?
How can they serve a no knock warrant with out having real time eyes on knowledge that the suspect is in the house?
If they had an signed warrant for the address of Mckay home then they officers that submitted the warrant should be prosecuted for perjury.
If they served the warrant on the wrong house (the warrant was for another address) then they should be disciplined by their superiors for incompetence.
and even threatened to shoot their dog,
What a bunch of softies. Usually they shoot first and justify later.
Amen Brother, you said it.
Wait until they start busting tobacco smokers.
Probably the same thing would happen here and makes me want to check into armor piercing 12-gauge rounds. This stuff really makes my blood boil.
Guy by the name of David Koresh already tried that.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.