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Massachusetts SWAT Team Raids Wrong Home, Keeps Woman Naked for 10 minutes



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WORCESTER, Mass. — A woman said police and a SWAT team mistakenly raided her Worcester apartment and that she was frisked by an officer before being allowed to put clothes on.

Marianne Diaz told the Telegram & Gazette she awoke to state police detectives and a SWAT team breaking down her door on Wednesday morning.

The 23-year-old Diaz said she knelt with her frightened daughters beside her as police officers with shields pointed guns in her direction.

"Stop (expletive) crying and take care of your (expletive) kids," she claimed one officer told her.

She said a female officer later frisked her even though she was naked. Ten minutes passed before she was allowed to cover herself up, she added.

Diaz's fiance, Bryant Alequin, said he suffered a minor back injury during the raid. Their roommate, Joshua Matos, said doctors told him his wrist — which had been recovering from a fracture — was refractured.

District Attorney Joseph Early said that state police acted on the "best intelligence" available — a search warrant filed by a trooper who said a trusted source told him that the intended suspect, "Mr. Jackson," resided at the apartment.

In an affidavit, Trooper Nicholas E. Nason said a confidential informant told him the suspect had been staying in the apartment. He wrote that police had successfully raided the apartment last September, finding drugs.

Records showed police had arrested the man the SWAT team was looking for, who was a previous tenant at the apartment, at a different address on Aug. 6, the newspaper reported.

Hector Pineiro, the lawyer for Diaz and Alequin, demanded an investigation.

"This botched gun raid, without any doubt, is about an innocent family with two children — one disabled — who were utterly terrorized and abused as a result of the grossly reckless conduct exhibited by (police)," Pineiro said.

Living with a dope dealer might pay off after all. I would get me one, but I wouldn't count on our police being lazy enough for him to be out when they came in.
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WORCESTER — Governor Charlie Baker on Sunday called last week’s raid of a Hillside Street apartment in Worcester “troubling” after a young mother of two said a SWAT team mistakenly broke into her home, cursed at her, and was rough with others in the house.

Baker said State Police will investigate and he will wait for the results of their inquiry.


Marianne Diaz, 23, and her two daughters, ages 7 and 18 months, were asleep in a bedroom at 5:30 a.m. Wednesday when police broke down the door to their third-floor apartment, said the woman’s fiancé, Bryant Alequin, in an interview at their home Sunday afternoon.

Alequin, who was in the bathroom getting ready for work, said 10 to 15 officers barged in with their shields up and guns drawn. Officers broke down the bathroom door and cuffed Alequin, who said he then saw his fiancée naked, kneeling on the floor, in tears with their daughters at her side, crying.

Police soon learned the man they were seeking was not in the home and they left.

Worcester woman says SWAT team raided her home by mistake
A Worcester woman said police and a SWAT team mistakenly raided her apartment and that she was frisked by an officer before being allowed to put clothes on.

“You hope something like this never happens,” Baker said while attending a Mayor’s Cup event at Roberts Playground in Dorchester Sunday. “I am going to let the investigation play out before I say anything.”

The family and their attorney say that is part of the problem — no officials have said anything to them or offered an apology.

‘Nobody said sorry to us. That’s what hurts the most. They said they were doing their jobs.’

Bryant Alequin, whose Worcester apartment was mistakenly raided last week by police
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“Nobody said sorry to us,” Alequin, 23, said. “That’s what hurts the most. They said they were doing their jobs.”

He said he has no intentions to file a lawsuit; he just wants an apology.

Police were searching for Shane B. Jackson Jr., 36, who was the subject of a raid in that apartment last September, according to an affidavit in support of the search warrant obtained by the Telegram and Gazette.

The warrant was filed by Trooper Nicholas E. Nason, who stated in an affidavit that a confidential informant told him Jackson had been staying in the Hillside Street apartment with an “unknown girl and a black male” and that there were firearms in the home. Police had found drugs in last year’s raid.

In a statement, Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said, “The search warrant was executed based on the best intelligence at the time” and in a way to ensure “the safety of all involved.”

Early said Jackson was in the house in the days leading up to the execution of the warrant and that he was considered armed and dangerous.

But Alequin said no one in his family had ever heard of Jackson prior to the raid.

In the affidavit, Nason said he had researched the apartment and determined that two people listed it as their address, one of whom was Diaz, the Telegram and Gazette reported. The electricity account was in her name, according to Nason.

The other person has a lengthy criminal record and Diaz did not have a record, Nason wrote.

The Telegram and Gazette reported that Jackson was arrested by Worcester police on a theft warrant Aug. 6 at another address in Worcester.

Worcester police referred all questions to the State Police.

The family’s attorney and the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts said police failed to determine whether they had the right home.

“At the very least, the police should have verified that the [person] they were looking for was living in the home and was present at the time of the raid,” said Matthew Segal, legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “For this kind of thing to happen, a lot of people can share the blame and a lot of people should step up and try to fix this.”

Segal said officers can usually verify that the target of a raid lives at a certain location by conducting surveillance of the home, checking arrest reports, and speaking with the landlord.

Hector E. Pineiro , the family’s attorney, said the owner of the house is related to two Worcester police officers.

“They did no investigation at all,” said Pineiro. “You have hard-working people waking up to go to work when they were simply terrorized and scared out of their minds. [The officers] shouldn’t be looking at a naked woman, a mother of two, and pointing guns at her and their two children.”

Pineiro said there have been similar cases over the years in which the SWAT team has raided the wrong home and that no-knock search warrants are too easily obtained.

Diaz, who was later reached by phone, said she was too emotional to discuss the incident but said it has given her “a lot of anxiety.”

“We’ve all been traumatized,” said Alequin, who said that his family moved into the home in May.

“My kids jump every time there’s a knock at the door. My fiancée is hysterical. At night I can’t sleep next to her . . . she jumps out of her sleep.”

Officers stood over Diaz as she and her children cried, Alequin said, and cursed at her to stop. She was frisked by a female officer even though she was naked, Alequin said. Ten minutes passed before she was allowed to cover herself.

Alequin suffered a minor back injury during the raid and his brother-in-law, Joshua Matos, 27, who was sleeping in the living room and recovering from a fractured wrist, said his wrist was refractured. On Sunday his wrist was bandaged.

Neighbors said they were disturbed by what they heard about how the young family was treated.

“I support the police. They put their lives on the line, but you don’t just go off of an informant hunch,” said a 34-year-old woman who lives across the street and would only give her initials, M.K. “You guys screwed up. You should have looked into it a little more. Now you got two little ones over there traumatized.”

That just might get them a 7 figure certified check. Probably lots of lawyers on planes headed their way.

I generally stay out of these same-same threads where the usual posters say the same things pro and con.

Something similar happened to a friend of ours, a woman in her 70's. The cops had their man cuffed till they sorted things out, which was her son who had phoned them about an intruder and met them at the door. The older woman came out to see what was going on as the cops arrived. She was nearly naked in a minimal night slip, cold with the doors of the house wide open, and confused as the cops brow beat her for half an hour and refused to let her put on clothes or even put on a jacket.

Rude behavior by police continues to degrade public opinion toward them. Ditto to defending such abuse.

They may have hit the dope dealer jackpot. It's hard to predict without more information. The fact that they were living with a fella, that they knew was dealing dope out of their house, won't help their case much.

Still not as good as the FBI chainsawing the door off the hinges at the wrong house during a family's dinner.

Ain't the drug war wonderful!

check them for neck and hand tattoo's and if they have them, throw the fuggen book at them.

"They may have hit the dope dealer jackpot. It's hard to predict without more information. The fact that they were living with a fella, that they knew was dealing dope out of their house, won't help their case much."

You must have information not available to the rest of us to make that comment.

If it is a fact. Cops say one thing, media and tenants say something different. Of course, cops can't lie, but they might pull your leg a little.

Could you refer us to where it says that anyone dealing dope was currently living in the house? The couple said they had never heard of the suspect and they certainly didn't fit the description the informant gave of the home's occupants. I realize an informant has NEVER given bad info to save their self or to gain favor with whomever is handling them but hey, first time for everything:)

John

This speaks to the fundamental problem with permitting the police to behave like a military platoon in enemy territory, instead of like peace officers within a free republic, when serving search and arrest warrants. The Fourth Amendment's framers clearly intended a peaceful interaction between a suspect and the authorities during what is supposed to be a process by which agents of state advise the person being served that there is a warrant, and offer to show same to him for his inspection prior to entering his castle. If there is anything irregular about it, the castle occupants are meant to have the authority to tell said agents to come back when the warrant is corrected. This stage is now made impossible by the military nature of these procedures, which inevitably leads to rights violations the likes of which are not meant to be possible under a republican form of government.

Exactly right. And the news media PC police have made it danged near impossible for most go-along-to-get-along, average folks to speak their heart. Most people if they were honest, would say they don't GAF if others are doing drugs. They ain't. So why should they be tromped on due to the abuse of drugs by others? Instead they have to be all in on the War on Drugs, lest they be looked down upon by their neighbors. Hypocrisy.

Them there informants is the salt of the earth type fella's! Absolutely trustworthy... except when high, drunk, or when they're just plain dumber than a fence post.

But regardless, CI's are much more trustworthy than a houseful of civilians. They lie all the time, ya know.


Need a sarcasm flag..

"Records showed police had arrested the man the SWAT team was looking for, who was a previous tenant at the apartment, at a different address on Aug. 6, the newspaper reported." Oops.....show me the money

Ho-hum. Keep the Campfire burning!

That's top-flight police work. That's all there is to it.

You both hit the nail on the head. And as long as the only ones to pay are the taxpayers in the community where the assaults take place, nothing will change.

I hope I live long enough to see a whole damn SWAT team hauled off in body bags, killed by a lawful homeowner.

Then things might change.

Pat Powell ain't usually the first to circle the wagons and talk out his ass........ but he did this time.

I guess you missed this part.


"Records showed police had arrested the man the SWAT team was looking for, who was a previous tenant at the apartment, at a different address on Aug. 6, the newspaper reported."