A Black family was left angry, confused and traumatized after more than a dozen cops raided their Louisiana home late one night last month, forcing them outside at gunpoint while they searched the house for a man named “Josh” who did not live there and was not even known to the family.
Now the Baton Rouge family has obtained an attorney and is planning on suing over the botched raid.
“It was scary,” said Ireisha Mouton in an interview with Atlanta Black Star who lives in the Baton Rogue home with her fiancé and their seven children, describing a terrifying incident where the cops were banging on their front door while pointing guns at them through the windows.
“It was even more scary because our children were involved.”
One of their daughters, remained hiding under the covers on the top bed of the triple bunk bed she shares with her two sisters while the cops were searching the room.
“They didn’t even see her but what if my baby would have got up and they would have shot her?” Mouton said.
Mouton’s fiancé, Arthur Brown, who was sleeping when the cops banged on the front door and started flashing lights into the windows with guns drawn and red laser beams pointing at them, said his first instinct was to grab his phone to start recording but then he hesitated.
“I’m a Black human being,” he said. “I’m not going to reach for my phone so they can shoot me thinking I’m trying to reach for a gun.”
Mouton, who was in bed wearing only a top when the cops threatened her at gunpoint through the window, said she wrapped herself in a blanket even though she wanted to put on a pair of pants.
“I didn’t want to grab nothing from out of the closet because I didn’t want to get shot,” she said, saying she was recalling how Breonna Taylor was killed in another botched raid in 2020.
The cops terrorized the family for about 30 minutes before leaving, providing no explanation or apology for their blunder.
“They said, ‘you all can go back to sleep but I said, how do you all expect us to go back to sleep after all this?”
“I was hyperventilating. I was unable to go back to sleep.”
A neighbor recorded a short video of the raid from outside which is posted below.
Wrong Address on Warrant?
The incident took place around 10 p.m. on July 29. The cops who raided their home consisted of Baton Rogue police officers assisting the Louisiana Division of Probation and Parole, WAFB-TV reported.
The man they were looking was Joshua Westley, a 23-year-old man who last year did not show up to court to face aggravated assault charges, according to Louisiana court records.
However, the court records show a judge ordered a warrant issued for him on July 15, 2024 – more than a year before the cops raided the home of the innocent family where they have been living for five months.
The family has yet to see the warrant but local media obtained a copy and said the address listed on the warrant is different from the house they raided. Local media also said the warrant is dated July 26, 2024. Atlanta Black Star has also requested a copy of the warrant but has not received it yet.
And it’s not even clear if he even lived at the house because their landlord told the family and local media she has no recollection of a man with that name living there.
Brown, who said he has family members in law enforcement, was livid when he heard the warrant was more than a year old.
“The professional thing to do is to send an unmarked car to watch the house to see if Josh is physically coming in and out before they raid the house,” he said.
Police told local media they were given consent to enter the home but the parents said it was their 18-year-old son who opened the door and was too afraid to say they were not welcome inside the home.
“They had the house surrounded and were looking into all the windows with their red beams and flashlights and guns, telling us, ‘Put your hands up! Go to the front!’” Mouton said.
They initially thought was perhaps the cops were looking for somebody who ran from them and hid in their backyard because nobody in the family has been in trouble with the law before.
“They’re good kids,” said Mouton, sharing a video of a portfolio where she keeps all the certificates and awards earned by their children from school from over the years. And their Facebook pages are filled with photos of themselves spending time with their children going back years.
But now their children are having trouble sleeping and a daughter has covered her windows up with pillows and the entire family is suffering from anxiety, especially when somebody knocks on the door.
And they are especially bothered by how the cops refused to apologize for their blunder.
“I pay my taxes, I deserve respect,” Brown said. “I don’t care if I’m paying rent, that still my personal space and I paid for that personal space. And they invaded my personal space.”
Great Job Carlos Miller & the Team @ Atlanta Black Star Source link for sharing this story.
