HEAVILY ARMED SWAT TEAM OVERWHELMS TEENAGE GIRL WATCHING TV

Stormed wrong address by tossing two flashbang grenades into the house

John Nelson, originator of the police SWAT concept and founder of LAPD’s SWAT unit, the first in the nation, once told me he feared the misuse of SWAT units if they spread to smaller cities and towns. It did not take long before his fears turned out to be true. Here is the latest example:

COPS MOUNT OVER-THE-TOP SWAT RAID ON UNSUSPECTING GIRL’S HOME… AFTER TEENAGE NEIGHBOR THREATENED POLICE USING HER UNPROTECTED WIFI
By Leon Watson

Mail Online
June 29,2012

Armed to the teeth, they crashed into the house like their life depended on it.

And as far as they were concerned it did - because officers in Evansville, Indiana, believed their police station was in serious danger.

But, after flinging in two stun grenades and piling into the front room, what they found was an innocent - albeit bewildered - teenage girl.

She was watching television. So much for the hot lead.

Even more embarrassingly for police though, they had been so eager to show off their decisive action they invited television cameras and the local press.

The officers were acting on postings left on online discussion forum Topix threatening violence against local police.

So they sent in the SWAT team to execute a search warrant. The only problem was the threats were probably just a prank made by someone in the same street.

Officers were filmed smashing the screen door and a window, tossing a flashbang stun grenade into the house and then a second for good measure.

Stephanie Milan, 18, was inside. She managed to stay calm because she knew her family hadn’t done anything wrong but she was still stunned.

Moments later police realized they had made a terrible mistake and Miss Milan and her grandmother Louise were released without charge.

Stephanie's grandfather Ira, who owns the property, told the Evansville Courier & Press: 'The front door was open. It's not like anyone was in there hiding.

'To bring a whole SWAT team seems a little excessive.'

It turned out the home had an open WiFi router, and the threats had been made by someone outside the house.

After a little bit more digging, the force realized that the threats had come from a house on the same street.

This time, apparently recognizing they had gone a little over-the-top on the first raid, the police department didn't send in the SWAT team.

Instead, they just sent officers up to the door.

Police chief Billy Bolin told the Evansville Courier & Press: 'We did surveillance on the house, we knew that there were little kids there, so we decided we weren't going to use the SWAT team.

'We did have one officer with a ram to hit the door in case they refused to open the door. That didn't happen, so we didn't need to use it.'

Their target appears to be a teenager who owns a smartphone but has denied using it to make the threats.