Happened in 1992 in Venice, Missouri.

From the June 5, 1992 St. Louis Post-Dispatch:

When Venice Mayor Tyrone Echols saw two city patrol cars zip past his window, he asked Police Chief James Bennett where they were going. To raid a crack house, the chief explained.

Hours later, the furious mayor found himself confronting a pair of city officers, demanding to know how they could have directed a state police SWAT team to break down the door of his own home by mistake.

“To tell the truth, I don’t remember what they said because I was furious,” Echols, 54, said in an interview Thursday. Echols later calmed down but was pensive about what might have happened if he or his son, Tyrone Jr., 30, with whom he shares the house, had been present Wednesday afternoon when police broke through a window and battered down the back door. “If I’d been here and heard that going on I probably would have taken my pistol and shot through the door,” Echols said. “I’d probably be dead. And some of the officers would probably be dead, too.”

Think they make a “Sorry I Accidentally Sent a SWAT Team to Storm Your House, Boss” card?

This entry was posted on Friday, December 30th, 2005 at 2:39 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.