Brownsville, Texas:

A case of mistaken identity turns a Brownsville family’s world upside down.

Lupe Cuellar and his wife Pilar were startled at 1:30 in the morning by a knocking at their door.

The men at the door said they were cops, but Lupe wasn’t sure. He said he’d heard about some burglaries in the neighborhood.

He told his wife to call police. She called 911.

Pilar says the 911 operator told her, “We got a call that your husband was beating you.”

The officers tried to kick down the door. She told her husband it was the police and he opened the door.

Lupe says the police officer put him in a choke hold, dragged him to the kitchen, and threw him on the floor.

The man required hospitalization. The dispatcher had sent the police to the wrong address. The next day, the police chief explained the officers’ violent reaction, “”We’re human. You get caught up emotionally.”

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 3:49 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.