Annapolis police are now refusing to release an internal report about what went wrong in a botched raid on an innocent family. Police broke down the door, deployed a concussion grenade, and kicked a man in the groin before realizing they had the wrong house.

They’re now saying the public–for whom they work, remember–won’t get to see the report because the family is pursuing a lawsuit.

After initially telling the media that wrong door raids happen “almost never” in Annapolis, they’re now conceding at least 15 incidents in the last 30 years, or once every two years. The most they’ll say is that this particular botched raid was the result of “misinformation and miscommunication.”

I don’t care if the report might reveal details that will make it harder for the city to fight a lawsuit. If that’s the case, then the family deserves compensation. But more importantly, the people this department serves deserve to know what went wrong, and what the department is doing to make sure it doesn’t happen again in two years.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 11:21 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Militarization, Police Professionalism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.