SWAT Team Raids Wrong Worcester Home, Residents Say
WORCESTER (CBS) -- Marianne Diaz and her fiancé, Bryant Alequin, felt their lives were in danger when a SWAT team raided their third-floor apartment on Hillside Street with guns drawn.
Diaz says she grabbed her seven-year-old and 18-month-old girls and prayed while Worcester police officers and State Police troopers executed a search warrant.
"It was terrorizing, and the worst thing I've ever been through in my life. They were loud, vulgar, and disgusting in behavior," she said.
It happened on Wednesday around 5:30 in the morning.
Alequin says he was in the bathroom getting ready for work.
"I was scared, honestly. They put me in handcuffs, they were very tight, and it was ugly," he said.
Turns out they were not the people police were looking for.
"I just want there to be a full-on investigation, and give us an explanation as to why they did this to my family and why they terrorized us the way they did," Diaz says.
The family's attorney, Hector Pineiro, says his clients rights were violated.
"You can imagine 10 officers looking and pointing guns at a naked 23-year-old mother protecting her two kids. The horrific language and pointing of weapons at children cannot be justified under any circumstances," he said.
Police have raided the apartment before, but Diaz moved in back in May with her fiancé and two children.
The person that used to live there does have a criminal record, but Diaz and her family have never been in trouble with law.
"They came into my house like that when they did not have their facts right," Alequin said.
The DA's office released a statement saying "The search warrant was executed based on the best intelligence at the time. He (the target) had been in the dwelling in the days before the execution of the search warrant."
Pineiro strongly disagrees.
"It's clear to me that the (district attorney's) office is not going to look into what happened because he's already giving the blessing they acted on the best intelligence, which is a complete joke," he said.
The family has not yet decided if they will file a lawsuit.
