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Dec 17, 2007 11:06 pm US/Central
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Property Records Search May Have Prevented Raid
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ―
A property records search may have prevented Minneapolis Police from raiding the wrong home early Sunday morning.
Sources tell WCCO-TV, that the department's Violent Offender Task Force was investigating an African-American street gang. By typing in the address on the warrant, the Hennepin County property records site lists the homeowner as Vang Khang.
"It would give me pause," said Mylan Masson, Director, Criminal Justice and Law Enforcement program at Minneapolis Community & Technical College. "You're always trying to verify. You want to verify as much information as possible."
On Monday night, Lt. Amelia Huffman, the head of the department's homicide unit, told the Associated Press 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, 29, 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. They have six children living at the home.
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 six broken windows and 22 bullet holes. A bedroom door frame and wall were also peppered with holes from the shotgun blasts.
Two officers were hit by the shots, but they were not injured. Police have put seven officers on paid administrative leave, standard procedure when police fire their weapons.
Masson was an officer and now trains police officers. She said that in a narcotics investigation, officers have time to do surveillance to make sure a target is the correct house. In a weapons case, she said, there's typically more urgency.
"The speed can most definitely have a cost, yes," she cautioned.
(© 2008 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)