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.
Hey, gestapo cops, smash down my door next!
I remember one of my radio favorites Jerry Pearce (”Radio Detective Show”). He told the story of when he was a uniformed officer and raided a house suspected of drug dealing. Wrong house. Inside was an elderly couple seated at the table. Neither was alarmed. The old man motioned with his fork and told the officers, “Next door.”
That was back in days when Flash Bang (stun) grenades were common, they would ignite the carpets and burn the house to the ground.
They made a bad mistake, and again that office should review all there procedures and look into how a wrong address got busted into.
Someone needs to be potentially fired.
If there was injury, then some money damages need to be made from he city.
That said, the law is being upheld by imperfect humans and mistakes have and will be made.
They have to do their best to make no mistakes if they can.
You’re fired is too lenient.
How about “You’re indited” and “You’re convicted” and “You’re sentenced”.
If we’re going to get this sh*t to stop, we need public outrage and legal action. We need criminal complaints. We need to make the penalties so high that they won’t dare repeat it. Short of that they will laugh it off, claim it was an ‘honest mistake’, and keep going. Civil actions and infrequent awards are not enough.
These days the old man would be shot for threatening the officer with a deadly weapon — the fork.
Fortunately, people have thus far been satisfied with winning the litigation lottery.
This cannot continue much longer. We are hearing these stories every week now.
The police only broke down her door, scared her children, injured her husband, it could have been a lot worse.
Heck, she should thank the police for not following standard procedure for a no knock dynamic entry WOD raid.(War on Dogs)
No one got tazered, the family pet wasn't shot, no one in the family was shot by accident, no body planted evidence to cover their incompetent asses
Do I really need a < s > tag
[i]Well, it was when people started shooting at cops in regular uniform and with regular weapons making drug raids that they started going to SWAT tactics. You can’t have it both ways.[/i]
“Was this before or after asset forfeiture laws allowed police to keep the booty they seized?”
You hit the nail on the head there! Authority is intoxicating enough without greed. Why don’t they learn the lesson of Waco and wait for people to leave the place?
Something is wrong with this story - no mention of any dogs being shot. Couldn’t they at least found a kitten or a parakeet to shoot?
“Well, it was when people started shooting at cops in regular uniform and with regular weapons making drug raids that they started going to SWAT tactics. You can’t have it both ways.”
No, it was when cops realized they got to play with automatic weapons and other cool toys that they started using military tactics.
I wasn't there, but an epileptic might have made moves (unintentionally) that looked scary.
I take it they were going after people who could kill police, so they probably assume anyone moving for anything could be going after a gun.
The do need to do the best possible job to avoid these kind of mistakes though.
It isn't as if an epileptic could help at times how they move, right?
Who ever was responsible for reading the address would be the one to blame.
Though it seems brutal, being the police are not paid to come in second, I bet they were being cautious.
Remember that gang members/drug dealers also have families and there have been times when there were machine guns under children's beds and all other kinds of things to watch for.
I know I wouldn't want to be an officer, tough mostly thankless job.
What’s really scary about these “wrong address” situations is what kind of mistakes do you think these guys can make when they only have a split second to figure it out? You know those life and death situations? I mean I assume they had as much time as they needed to, at the very least, make sure the address on the door is the address on the warrant. It might even be worthwhile to make sure the right address is on the warrant too while they are it. I guess paperwork is kinda boring, and not what they signed up for.
If we intend to continue on with these paramilitary home invasions (and it seems we do intend to) can we at least have a rule that anytime a wrong house is hit that SOMEONE is going to get fired? I think that would at least reduce them some, no?
That is 100% true...which is why the Founders set up strict Constitutional limits on government in the first place.
You may disagree, but I don't believe the Founders would approve of these neverending violations of the principle that a man's home is his castle. It's one of the oldest precepts of English Common Law -- and in my opinion, the castle principle cannot co-exist with the idea of widespread, militarized police raids.
It's become obvious that we can have one or the other -- but not both.
(just kidding)
I wish I could believe people would ‘hunt’ them but I get a bad image of some semi-psychotic or obsessive chasing cops who ARENT part of these drug raids or with any record or allegation of abuse or corruption.
The reasonable but still outraged folks like us rarely act. It’s usually some disturbed individual with less ability to discriminate and make intelligent and morally informed decisions that does. Which will, in turn, cause people to irrationally gravitate to the defense of even the worst cops.
Cops don’t have a long history of being murdered serving warrants on homes.
They are usually killed in traffic accidents or on traffic stops on the road.
you’re making excuses for them and referring to morally reprehensible behavior as a mistake.
Anyone else makes these ‘mistakes’ and you’d be condemning them.
As for it being thankless. Seems like if you can get away with murder, get off on authority and ordering people around and working with guns and uniforms and badges and exercising power over others it’s a pretty awesome and rewarding job.
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