Woman files complaint after SWAT team raids wrong house

Citizen Times
Posted : 2007-05-14

HENDERSONVILLE – A woman who says a police SWAT team mistakenly raided her home and put a gun to the head of one of her grandson’s friends has filed a formal complaint against the Hendersonville Police Department.

Sandra Braswell said the officers threw two smoke grenades into her house at 208 N. Oak St. around 1:30 a.m. Saturday while her 16-year-old grandson and six of his friends were having a party on the back porch.

She said the officers, with guns drawn, told the teenagers to get on the floor. When some of the teenagers tried to run, the officers forced them to the ground and pinned their hands behind their backs.

“They didn't show no warrant,” she said on Monday. “They didn’t have no warrant for this house. They made me lay in the floor, though. I couldn’t say nothing, with my hands up in the air and all these kids in here on the floor. One of the kids laying across form me, cop got a gun pointed to his head.”

Braswell said the officers made her and her 11-year-old granddaughter get on the floor in the living room. When her granddaughter tried to get up to find her 7-year-old sister, Braswell said an officer told her to get back down on the floor.

Braswell said they were forced to lie on the ground for 10 minutes before the officers got a call realizing their mistake.

“All of them had tried to be apologetic to the children after they done it,” she said.

Police Chief Donnie Parks is expected to provide a written statement about the incident today. Braswell said she has not yet heard from the chief. She filed her written complaint today.

Braswell said the team was supposed to be raiding a home on Geneva Street, which is one street behind her house.

Part of her fence is broken, an interior door was knocked of its hinges and there is burn mark on her floor from the smoke grenade.

She said she hasn’t stayed at the house since it happened.

“My 11 year old granddaughter was in here,” she said. “That cop shouldn’t have touched her. He grabbed her on her top and said ‘I said get on the floor,’” she recalled. “And she said ‘Ok, ok.’ Her voice was trembling. And they got her down on the floor with her hands behind her back, like what’s she know about something like this. And the other kids, too.”