Ft. Worth, Texas:

Fort Worth Police say they were acting on credible information. Credible or not, one man says that information was wrong, and now he’s left with a home in disarray.

When a police swat team surrounded a southeast Fort Worth house they were acting on a warrant.

Police were looking for Howard Earl Taylor at 3612 Rufus Street. The man was wanted for crack cocaine possession.

Once on the scene, police fired several rounds of tear gas into a house, then SWAT team officers rushed in and broke down the back door.

According to Steven Blackman, the only thing the SWAT team got right is the address. Blackman says he’s been living there for two years and that police raided the wrong house.

“They never admitted that they made a mistake,” he said.

[...]

As part of the raid, Blackman says, the tires on his truck were intentionally punctured. Now the man is unable to get back into his house, because the remnants of tear gas are still painful to the eyes and nose.

“I want my house fixed. I want my life back. Put it this way, I work real hard, all I do is remodel houses all day. Anyone will tell you that I’m gone 8 to 10 hours a day. Now I can’t even work. I got work material in there that is all messed up. Anything in that house is not usable,” Blackman said.

By my count, that’s three in a week. Four since the Hudson ruling. Plus the New Mexico suit from a raid last month.

And these are only those we know of.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 29th, 2006 at 8:07 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.