-
Dec 17, 2007 8:06 pm US/Central
-
Digg |
Facebook |
E-mail
|
Print
7 Officers On Paid Leave After Raid Goes Awry
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) ―
Seven Minneapolis police officers were on paid administrative leave Monday as investigators try to determine what went wrong with a raid on a non-suspect's home that ended with two of the officers getting shot but nobody injured, authorities said.
Vang Khang grabbed his hunting gun to protect himself, his wife and six children when they heard someone burst through the back door early Sunday, Khang said Monday night. He fired three shots, hitting two members of the SWAT team, but they were unhurt thanks to their bulletproof vests and helmets. Officers returned fire, but nobody in the house was injured. Police released Khang after taking his statement.
Lt. Amelia Huffman, the head of the department's homicide unit, said the officers went to the house listed in the search warrant they were executing, but it turned out that they were acting on information from a source that was wrong. The source had provided other information that was accurate and officers had nothing to make them question its veracity, she said.
"Clearly there was something that happened that prevented this particular source from getting this address correct," she said.
Huffman declined to say much about the underlying case, but said it was generated by the department's Violent Offender Task Force, which she said typically handles drug and gang crimes.
Khang, 34, and his wife, Yee Moua, told reporters Monday night that they thought intruders had broken into their home.
Moua said she was watching television on the main floor when she heard voices and then windows breaking. She ran upstairs to tell her husband.
Khang said he grabbed the shotgun from a closet and fired three shots out his bedroom door. When his sons yelled at him that the intruders were actually police, he put down his gun and put his hands in the air.
"The whole family is badly shaken and still trying to understand what happened," Moua said. She and Khang showed reporters five broken windows and 22 bullet holes.
All six of the family's children, who are between the ages of 3 and 15, were home at the time.
The separate criminal and internal investigations are continuing and nobody was in custody Monday, she said. The administrative leaves for the seven officers are standard in cases of officer-involved shootings.
(© 2008 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)