WRONG POLICE RAID BRINGS $20M LAWSUIT

NEW YORK, May 13 (UPI) -- A Brooklyn woman who says she and her young
children were terrorized by police who raided their apartment for drugs and
guns by mistake is suing the city of New York for $20 million.

Attorney Susan Karten says this is the second time in a week a lawsuit has
been filed charging the city's police with going to the wrong apartment to
execute a search warrant and harassing the people who live there. She is
filing her suit today in Brooklyn Supreme Court.

The lawyer tells United Press International, ``You can't suspend the rights
of minorities in the name of a drug crackdown.''

Karten's client is a 29-year-old Hispanic woman and mother of four
children. Two of the children, ages 2 and 7, were home during the raid.

The attorney says that last June, 15 narcotics detectives stormed her
client's apartment, dragged the almost-naked woman from her bed and held a
gun to her head, demanding to know where her stash of guns and drugs were.

Karten says the woman's baby was screaming in terror and the police refused
to let her comfort the child. She adds that while some of the detectives
spent nearly two hours ransacking the woman's apartment, others
interrogated her 7-year-old, asking for information about the woman and her
boyfriend.

She says that when her client asked the officers for a search warrant, she
was ordered to ``shut up.''

Karten adds that the police neglected to apologize to her client when they
realized they had the wrong apartment.

The lawyer says she will release photos of the ransacked apartment and a
copy of the search warrant that authorizes the Brooklyn Narcotics Swat Team
to search apartment 2M of 396 New Jersey Ave. for drugs and guns. The woman
and her children live in apartment 2L at that address.

In a similar, unrelated incident last February, Bronx narcotics cops
mistakenly broke down the door of the wrong apartment and pumped 24 bullets
inside after a terrified tenant fired one shot at the officers because he
thought he was being robbed. Ellis Elliott says he is also launching a
multi-million lawsuit against the city.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski