Free Thought Project – by Andrew Emett
Philadelphia, PA – Police apologized on Wednesday after raiding an innocent family’s home and traumatizing a disabled woman who nearly fell down the stairs. Touted as “innovative” and “state-of-the-art,” the Real Time Crime Center mistakenly directed officers to the wrong house and another botched raid.
Around 2:30 a.m. on Wednesday, cops suddenly broke down the Jardine family’s door and raided their home while holding them at gunpoint. Despite the fact that the family had committed no crime, officers ordered them out of their rooms and placed them in handcuffs during the middle of the night.
“I’m coming out of the shower, and there’s a Pump Action Rifle to my chest,” Angel Jardine told WPVI. “He’s just like, ‘Put your hands up.’ Rifle in my chest, and I’m like, ‘Whoa.’”
Physically impaired after an ex-boyfriend shot her in the head, forty-eight-year-old Ronik Jardine had been asleep in her bed when the cops woke her up and immediately ordered her out of the room.
“He said, ‘Go down the steps. Go down the steps now.’ I said, ‘Officer, I’m handicap.’” recalled Ronik Jardine. “He still didn’t care that I was handicap. They almost made me fall down the steps.”
After taking some family members into custody and interrogating them, the police concluded they had raided the wrong residence and apologized. According to Michael Jardine, an officer told him that it was a case of mistaken identity and offered to give them a ride back home.
“I just still feel like it shouldn’t have never gotten that far, you coming in our house drawing guns,” said Michael Jardine.
Ironically, the police claim they were searching for armed suspects committing violent home invasions when the cops mistakenly broke down the Jardine’s door. Described as “an innovative unit that provides real time analytical and investigative support to the Philadelphia Police Department,” the Real Time Crime Center reportedly reviewed surveillance video that led the heavily armed officers into raiding the wrong home.
On the Philadelphia Police Department’s website, they boast, “Video feeds from city of Philadelphia, SEPTA, and independent businesses cameras are available for monitoring around the clock, by staff in the Real Time Crime Center.”
Equipped with disturbingly Orwellian technology, the police still managed to raid the wrong home and terrify an innocent family in the middle of the night at gunpoint.
“I’m scared of guns,” Ronik Jardine told WPVI. “It traumatized me so bad, I had to go to the doctor this morning.”
Earlier this year, a police flashbang grenade disfigured the face and melted the hand of a former Miss Australia during an early morning drug raid. In May 2014, a police flashbang grenade landed in 19-month-old Bounkham Phonesavanh’s crib and blew a hole in the baby’s face and chest, covering him in third-degree burns.
Just past midnight on May 16, 2010, a Detroit SWAT team tossed a flashbang grenade into the living room where 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones had been sleeping on the couch. As the flashbang incinerated her blanket, Aiyana was immediately shot in the head by Officer Joseph Weekley. Weekley claimed that Aiyana’s grandmother had reached for his weapon, but ballistics and another officer’s testimony refute his accusations. Police later realized they had forcibly entered the wrong apartment. The suspect, Chauncey Owens, lived upstairs.
Read more at http://thefreethoughtproject.com/police-raid-wrong-home-terrorize-innocent-disabled-woman/#LgsTSVHqSXZMscgl.99