A report from Monroe, Louisiana:

What do you do when armed police officers burst into your home with guns pointed on eight children and two women?

If you are LaMouria Lloyd you get angry! You get furious!

Lloyd said she and her sister are still reeling from the effects of the intrusion into their 1607 Alabama Street home on July 31st by three members of what she called a Swat Team with guns pointed at all of the women and children, yelling and cursing looking for a suspect.

The police had the wrong house, but they traumatized the residents and broke down their door.

They apologized and promised to fix her door. No one has ever returned.

It’an experience she says neither she, the children or her sister will never forget.

That night Lloyd returned home from work and talked to her mom on the phone. Her mom was hospitalized and she dozed off only to be awakened to the words, “Get on the f—king ground!”

She said they were yelling and pointing guns as they moved through her house. The children began to cry and the two women were terrified.

“They scared me, my sister and all eight of the kids. My niece was asking her mom what was wrong and she told her, “Baby, I don’t know!”

Both women palpitated. Her sister had an asthma attack and Lloyd had an anxiety attack.

When the officers, all white, realized they had entered the wrong house they apologized and promised to come back to repair the door they broke down breaking in. They have never returned.

“My 13 year old daughter said she is scared for life. The SWAT team was supposed to have come back and fixed the back door, but they still haven’t showed up,” Lloyd said.

“What they did isn’t fair because there were kids involved besides two adults. They were afraid to go to sleep that night. They were told they were in the wrong house over and over again. There were young kids in the house as young as three years old.”

Lloyd said she and her family were terrorized and don’t know what to do.

Of course, it’s irrelevant that the the officers were white.  The militarized tactic of SWAT raids on domiciles is at question here regardless of location or race.  Note again that the officers had their weapons pointing at the children.  This is yet another example of poor muzzle discipline, and the incident may have included poor trigger discipline.  When anyone who doesn’t happen to be a law enforcement officer does something like this, it’s called trespassing, brandishing a firearm, and assault with a deadly weapon (a felony offense that generally includes “the intentional creation of a reasonable apprehension of imminent bodily harm”).  And bodily harm often does result, as with the case of Mr. Eurie Stamps, prone on the floor after his home had been mistakenly invaded, and who was shot dead by an officer who had his finger on the trigger of his weapon and stumbled, firing as a sympathetic muscle reflex.  The use of profanity adds insult to injury, and is unnecessary, obscene and insulting around little children.

But if you’re a law enforcement officer, you can do this all over America without any expectation of ever being held to account by the judicial system or the prosecutors.  But as I’ve said before, “De-escalation is the order of the day.  There is no reason to reflexively assume that a SWAT raid is in order, and every reason to take more care and concern for the unintended consequences of the use of such military tactics on American citizens.  Note to police departments around the nation: relax, call a uniform, and let him tell you what needs to be done, if anything.”  And if you want to apprehend someone, do a little investigative work.  Find and approach your suspect when he isn’t around anyone else or in his home.  SWAT teams aren’t a replacement for old fashioned police work.

So what does a SWAT team and eight children have in common?  Only that they shared the same experience, except with the children on the muzzle end of the gun.

Prior: SWAT Raids Category