Posted on 08/17/2008 12:46:00 PM PDT by ellery
Armed with a battering ram and shotguns, Buffalo police looking for heroin broke down the door and stormed the lower apartment of a West Side family of eight.
The problem is that the Wednesday evening raid should have occurred at an apartment upstairs.
And, that’s only the tip of the iceberg, according to Schavon Pennyamon, who lives at the mistakenly raided apartment on Sherwood Street with her husband, Terrell, and six children.
Pennyamon alleges that after wrongly breaking into her apartment, police proceeded to strike her epileptic husband in the head with the butt end of a shotgun and point shotguns at her young children before admitting their mistake and then raiding the right apartment.
She says she’s left with a broken door, an injured husband, jittery children and — what bothers her most — still no apology from police.
“They know they did something wrong and they were still ignorant,” said the 29-year-old Pennyamon. “At first, I just wanted an apology. Now, because they want[ed] to be ignorant and rude, I have to take it to the next level.”
She filed a report with the department’s Professional Standards Division and also contacted Mayor Byron W.
Brown about the incident. Pennyamon said Friday evening she also has retained a lawyer and intends to pursue legal action.
Police brass acknowledge that officers with the Mobile Response and Narcotics units entered the wrong apartment.
“As the officers were in the lower apartment, one of the detectives reviewed the search warrant application and realized it was for the upper [apartment],” said Dennis J. Richards, chief of detectives.
“It appears to be an honest mistake and we certainly apologize to all involved,” added Michael J. DeGeorge, Buffalo police spokesman.
Police declined to comment, however, on Pennyamon’s allegations of assault and other police impropriety. The internal investigation with the Professional Standards Division is now under way to determine exactly what happened.
“We wouldn’t be comfortable discussing the internal investigation,” Richards said. “We can say comfortably that over 1,100 search warrants were executed last year and 580 to date this year and that, with such a high volume and such a fast-paced environment, it is understandable that mistakes could happen.”
Pennyamon remains unconvinced it was a mistake. She says officers told her they had “raided the house before” and she believes they felt entitled to do it again — warrant or not.
“The way they make it seem is ‘we can do whatever we want,’ ” she said.
Pennyamon’s troubled by what she says is an arrogance by police officers and an unwillingness to “serve and protect” those who need it.
“It’s a sad situation. I’ve always looked up to the police. I’ve always expected them to be on my side.”
Pennyamon was called home from her job as a certified nursing assistant at a local health care facility at about 6:30 p. m. Wednesday to find police at her house, her children partially dressed on the porch and her husband — a U.S. Air Force veteran — injured. She said police were rude and unapologetic.
It was a harsh welcome to the neighborhood for the family. They’ve only lived at the apartment on Sherwood Street, on the far West Side just south of West Ferry Street, for two weeks after she says they moved from the East Side to escape crime. Now, Pennyamon said, the family already is looking to relocate again.
“I don’t know what was going on upstairs, but it gives police no right to bust in my doors,” she said. “That’s just ridiculous.”
Richards said police protocol dictates that search warrants are executed by police first announcing their presence and then quickly and forcefully entering a property with guns drawn for their own protection.
“Police have been faced with fortified doors and windows. In numerous locations, they’ve been met with individuals armed with weapons or attacking animals,” he said.
Pennyamon said the event left her husband with physical injuries and left a lasting impression on the children.
She said her husband, Terrell, suffered a dislocated arm after he was yanked up by police during the raid and is expected to return to his doctor Monday to possibly have glass — left behind by the door window police broke to get into the apartment — surgically removed from his foot.
Pennyamon’s 5-year-old daughter now sleeps with her.
“My 12-year-old and 6-year-old don’t want to be home at all,” she said, adding that her younger children cower or run to the back of the house when they hear anyone approaching.
“ ‘That’s the police,’ they say,” Pennyamon said.
Police said no arrests were made in the subsequent raid at the upstairs apartment.
‘If they don’t listen to the police when they enter under a warrant and start reaching for things when they say stop...YES! Police can’t tell if their innocent or reaching for a suicide belt.”
Take off your tin foil hat. In this case the cops weren’t even at the right address. They even managed to get the correct address on the warrant but evidently didn’t bother reading their own warrant.
If cops enter a house they do not have probable cause or a warrant for that is a crime.
“Some common sense should prevail.”
yes it should, sadly law enforcement lacks any common sense. They had to make room for their ego’s.
Drug dealers most often kill other drug dealers.
Ok, now I understand what your problem is. You have mistaken the police for the judicial system. A person is not a criminal until a jury or judge says he is. Until then, he is a citizen who is due all the rights guaranteed to citizens by the constitution.
Judge gives a warrant, and there is no right I know of for them not to be checked out.
Also they can burst right in if they drive by and suspect the commission of a crime is happening. (Like the screams of someone getting raped or murdered).
Your example is far far far different then cops doing a no knock on the wrong home. That you can’t see that is quite scary.
“Have you forgotten that a person is presumed innocent, so maybe tearing his house apart based on an unverified tip might be a little unreasonable.”
There are no innocents as far as they are concerned. Only people they haven’t caught yet.
right, because only the police are capable of yelling "freeze, police, search warrant". Sheez...
Just last week there was a case in the news about the thugs who broke into a house yelling exactly that, didn't you see it?
Again, you don’t get it.
The police did not KNOW that at the time.
The best thing to do is to cooperate till things get straightened out.
People have to use common sense.
Read the little story of my own.
It can happen.
Not really the police’s fault.
Things need to get better, but you have to get over there not being perfection because the best of us are human in all professions.
OK, have to go, picking up the wife (baby boy due in couple of weeks) :-)
‘Judge gives a warrant, and there is no right I know of for them not to be checked out.”
right for what not to be checked out. theres certainly is a right to be left alone. These folks did have a right to be left alone as the warrant was for this address. The cops should be charged with criminal negligence and assault with a deadly weapon.
You have to have common sense.
Outside of triple verifying things before and after a warrant, I don't know what other logical thing can be done.
Bad guys won't stop and police will go on doing their jobs.
“The police did not KNOW that at the time.”
They knew they were at the wrong address. It was right at the warrant that they failed to even read.
“The police did not KNOW that at the time.”
Sure, if you know its the cops. If someone were to break down my door I would not assume its the police.
Not their fault? Are you freaking kidding me!@!!!! Things aren’t getting better, they are getting worse. Police are taxing a kid with a broken back 19 times. They shoot grandmas and plant evidence on her. And then they cry for more authority and bigger weapons.
That aside, there is no issue of stopping law enforcement.
The only issue here is about what can be done to prevent future mistakes.
I say triple verify before and after the warrant by several individuals, that is my conclusion.
What is your logical answer to all this?
Anything goes and criminals get free passes would not be a logical answer.
Have a good night. :-)
That makes no common sense.
They didn't read it right, but KNEW they were at the wrong place.
I don't get the logic of that post to me. There was a mistake. Mistake means it wasn't on purpose.
You contradicted things all over IMO on that one.
My answer is read the warrant. Which should be based on real evidence in the first place and not the word of some narc trying to work a deal.
roughly 54% of people in federal prison are there for drug convictions. America has about 2% of our population in prison. Drugs are more available then ever.
Bigger weapons, killing women, children, grandmas, dogs, cats, and guys is not the answer.
Oh I’m sorry. I meant read the warrant BEFORE they start shooting and not after.
There's the rub! We got plenty of drugs because it's so profitable to distribute them.
Maybe we ought to have our gubmit' declare war on food. The world would not be able to consume it all....no one would starve. Food pushers would get filthy rich...and food prevention officers would still have their 30 days annual vacations and full medical......but no one would go hungry.... for a price....that is.
I just came across this.
Let me just say, there’s too much red and not enough blue.
My concept of the major problem with this has already been stated: that the police are completely unapologetic when huge mistakes are made, and that they simply toss aside or even cover up things like this that occur.
There really should be some way they acknowledge liability for errors instead of what occurs now.
“There’s the rub! We got plenty of drugs because it’s so profitable to distribute them.”
I don’t claim to have the answer but the current plan isn’t working. Thats plain enough to see.
Perhaps the right answer is to treat them like a medical issue. If people are stupid enough to get hooked then they get institutionalized. Thats pretty much what happens now except their dogs are shot first.
Remove the profit and you remove the corruption and criminal enterprise.
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