Ruby Fagan of 7th Avenue, New Orleans, St Michael says she is traumatized after police officers reportedly forced their way into her home in the wee hours of Monday morning.
The ordeal occurred around 3 a.m. and has left the 60-year-old shocked, especially since she claims the officers admitted to her that they came to the wrong house. She intends to seek legal advice regarding how she can be compensated for the emotional pain she suffered.
Fagan said at least two windows were damaged during the invasion.
She said she was in bed at the house which she shares with a friend when she heard a pounding on the house. She claimed the noise felt as though an attempt was being made to take off her gate. She eventually saw someone on her front steps spotting a searchlight through her house.
“Eventually the door opened and then I see a group of officers inside the house. I don’t know if they came through the front door or the window that they knock out, but them was inside the house. So, the lady say ‘we looking for Tyrese Brathwaite’ and I say I don’t have no Tyrese Brathwaite here.
“She said, ‘we looking for a cellular phone’. I say I don’t have a cellular phone, the only cellular phone I got is my own. Then she placed a piece of paper on the bed and I see Faith written big. I tell her I can’t read the rest because I does use glasses, so let me go and get the glasses and she said no.
“She said ‘go and put on a mask’ and I say I don’t have them in the bedroom, I have to go and get them. And I say, but this is not my name. My name is Ruby Fagan and sometimes people call me Fay,” she said.
Fagan recalled that one officer said to another “we got the wrong house” and then said sorry before leaving.
The distraught woman said she has never been on the wrong side of the law and said the encounter left her hurt and embarrassed.
“I am about to [seek legal advice]. I never was involved in anything so yet. I don’t know what a search warrant looks like, I don’t know what nothing so look like. It is just work and back home. I was frightened. When they came into the house I say officers what happened and then they said they looking for Faith. I living here for 55 years and I is 60 years old and never experienced nothing so yet,” she said.
President of the New Orleans Community Council and activist for the area, Glen Harvey said he was approached by Fagan who related what she had experienced and noted that he has given her the assurance that he would assist her however possible.
“All I want to say is that we don’t have anything against the policemen executing their duties because they have their duties to do. But what I am saying is that the police need to be more professional when they are coming to these investigations.
“When they are coming out to investigate these matters, they need to understand exactly who they are looking for and where they are going because something like this had this lady traumatized for the entire day. She was even frightened to go back in her home. We don’t have anything against the police doing their duties but do it in a more professional manner that wouldn’t embarrass the force,” Harvey said.
When contacted, Police Public Relations Officer Inspector Acting Inspector Rodney Inniss told Barbados TODAY that the matter would be investigated.
(BT)
