Raid on wrong house frustrates Baltimore coupleResident fights to have city pay for door police broke down
By Justin Fenton |
justin.fenton@baltsun.com3:56 PM EDT, May 6, 2009
Andrew Leonard, a 33-year-old chemist who has no criminal record, said he and his wife were frightened and humiliated by a mistaken no-knock raid at their Medfield home. Their dog, Figo, was not harmed during the incident. (Baltimore Sun photo)
Andrew Leonard was watching television with his wife not long after returning from Ash Wednesday services when police burst through the front door of his North Baltimore home. He was handcuffed, plopped in a chair and told to keep quiet as officers rifled through the house, then interrogated for 15 minutes about drugs and a dealer he knew nothing about.
As it turned out, police had the wrong house. The man they were looking for lived two doors down.
Leonard, a 33-year-old chemist who has no criminal record, said he and his wife, a 29-year-old credit analyst, were frightened and humiliated by the incident. But for the past two months, he's wanted just one thing from the city: for someone to pay for the damage to his front door.
And he said trying to get the city to help out in the aftermath has been even more frustrating than the police's initial mistake.
"My city is not working for us," said Leonard, who has lived in the Medfield neighborhood north of Hampden since October 2007. "We were victimized and now get zero cooperation from every office we deal with."
No-knock raids can be carried out through warrants signed by judges or by police who determine at the scene that announcing themselves would present a threat to officer safety or that a suspect is likely to destroy evidence. Critics say the highly confrontational tactic, often involving masked and armed officers, is increasingly being used across the country in situations that don't require such a volatile response.
A study by the Cato Institute in 2006 said hundreds of raids nationwide are conducted each year on wrong addresses, sometimes resulting in death. Such raids were heavily scrutinized in Maryland last year when police rushing the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights shot and killed his two dogs. Police cleared the mayor and his wife of wrongdoing — saying they were unsuspecting victims of a marijuana smuggling scheme — but defended the actions of the officers involved in the raid at the time.
Leonard said that incident flashed in his mind as his dog, an 80-pound chocolate Labrador named Figo, raced upstairs from the basement after police began ramming the door on Feb. 25. After the initial confusion and being peppered with a host of questions about drugs, Leonard said his attention turned toward securing his home.
He nailed his broken door shut and for a time entered and exited the home through the back alley. Eventually, he and some relatives did a "fair but amateur" job to install a new door. But work remained to be done, and he wanted the city to pay for it.
"I don't think any reasonable person would argue otherwise," Leonard said.
The city denied his claim to be reimbursed for the damage to the door. Leonard said he was told that since the warrant police were acting on did indeed list Leonard's address, the officers who burst through his front door hadn't technically stormed the wrong house.
After being connected with him through Councilwoman Belinda Conaway, the police commissioner's office promised to follow through as a "good faith measure," Leonard said.
But for the past two weeks his calls have not been returned, he said.
Meanwhile, the old front door sat in the backyard for two months. Leonard said he called the city's bulk trash pickup, but no one came. The city inspectors who issue tickets for garbage in residents' back yards did, however, and wrote him a $50 fine. It finally got picked up last Thursday.
"There is nothing that is right with this situation -- nobody deserves this type of treatment from the city," he said.
After receiving inquiries from The Baltimore Sun, a spokesman for Mayor Sheila Dixon assured that Leonard's claims would be forwarded to the Office of Neighborhoods and dealt with "immediately."
"Mr. Leonard's situation is very unfortunate," spokesman Scott Peterson said in an e-mail. "Now that this had been brought to the attention of the Mayor's Office, we will look into Mr. Leonard's complaints immediately and will respond with the care, attention, and respect that he, like all residents in Baltimore, deserves."
Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, said a command investigation — a type of internal investigation — was reviewing whether appropriate procedures were followed in regard to the raid. As far as the claim for Leonard's front door, Guglielmi said the estimate for repairs was high enough that the claim will have to go through the Board of Estimates, a process that could take some time.
"As far as making Mr. Leonard whole, the commissioner is aware of it and it is in the process," Guglielmi said.
Police did eventually make an arrest of the original target of the raid. David Pfister, 35, was arrested on a warrant on March 21 and charged with three counts of drug possession and distribution. In 2001, he pleaded guilty and received a 10-year sentence for drug possession with intent to distribute, though all but 30 days of that sentence was suspended.
Leonard said he isn't angry at the police. He said one of his best friends is a detective in New York City, and he understands that they put their own lives on the line running into dangerous houses. His concern is with the failure by city agencies to follow up.
"It definitely has [changed my view of Baltimore], not because of the break in, but the lack of action on the back end and the city not owning up to their responsibility" Leonard said. "It's really given me a sour taste."
