The Chicago law enforcement is facing ridicule once again for sending an 82-year-old woman to the hospital after they allegedly raided the wrong home.
According to ABC7 Chicago, the incident happened earlier this week when police issued an arrest warrant for the home of Elizabeth Harrison. Police claimed they had the right to search the home for the assailant, despite the fact Harrison had no idea who the man was. The great-grandmother was a widow and lived alone in her home.
Harrison tells reporters she nearly had a heart attack when police officers raided her home with guns drawn. “They wanted me to produce this young man that they were looking for,” Harrison said. “And they would not take no for an answer that I didn’t know him.” Her daughter Linda Channel, who lives down the street, hurried to her mother’s home to find her breathing uncontrollably. “They had her sitting in a chair, and her breathing was like (heavy breathing sounds,)” she reenacted.
As Channel spoke with police officers about the damages sustained to her mother’s home, the man police were searching for walked up to them, noting they were at the wrong house. “‘You all came to the wrong house. I live at 126, and this is 136,'” Channell said, quoting the man.
Regardless of the suspect and Harrison’s claims, a CPD spokesperson maintained the officers were at the right address. Harrison is still in the hospital as doctors carefully monitor her heart rate.
In the past few years, mistaken raids have resulted in severe injuries and deaths of innocent lives. Officials in Georgia’s Habersham County were under fire for throwing a grenade into the crib of a 19-month-old baby, leaving Bounkham ‘Bou Bou’ Phonesavanh in a medically induced coma in 2014. The SWAT team was looking for a drug offender during the no-knock raid when the baby was sleeping in his crib. After the near-fatal mistake, county officials refused to help pay for the family’s medical expenses.
Another high profiled failed raid was the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, who was shot by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley in 2010. The seven-year-old was sleeping on the family’s couch when she was shot in the head. Weekly was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment with a gun, but his cases ended in two hung juries.