Another Isolated Incident
A West Philadelphia family says they were terrorized in their own home Sunday night and blame the Philadelphia Police Department. The Narcotics Division was conducting an undercover operation, responding to complaints of drug deals happening on a home on the 5400 block of Summer Street.
"The officers responded to the wrong home," said Inspector Aaron Horne, commanding officer of the Narcotics Division. "They made a forced entry. Once inside they were alerted to the fact it was the wrong residence."
The police department spouted the usual line about how this almost never happens. Except that it's the second incident in Philly this month. Also, this isn't particularly comforting:
In this case, he says surveillance officers didn't give an address of the home they were targetting.
"They gave a physical description, house with a black storm door, in front of the residence was a pick up truck. Unfortunately there was a house 5 doors away that had a black storm door with pick up in front. The officers didn't have time to determine which house was which," said Inspector Horne.
So instead, they just took their chances, knowing there was a 50-50 shot they would end up terrorizing innocent people?
Some real professionalism, there.
Inspector Horne said "On behalf of the Philadelphia Police Department and the Narcotics Strike Force, I'm totally willing to apologize for the efforts, the mistake. The overall intent was to eradicate drugs from the neighborhood."
Oh, well if that's the intent, I guess it's all okay, then. What's a terrorized family or two if it prevents Philadelphians from getting high; if—as I'm sure is the case now that the raids are complete—that neighborhood is now 100 percent drug-free?
Thanks to Scott Morgan for the tip.