REPRISE OF TERROR

The police invaded Shaunsia Patterson's apartment about 4:30 P.M. on
Friday, Feb. 27. Ms. Patterson, who is eight months pregnant, and her two
children, a boy, 3, and a girl, 2, were napping in the bedroom at the rear
of the small second-floor apartment on Hull Avenue in the Bronx.

Also in the apartment was Ms. Patterson's 15-year-old sister, Misty
Patterson, who had just come in from school.

"First we heard a boom," said Shaunsia Patterson. "Then there was a louder
boom and the whole door was coming down."

The cops seemed to come in waves, some in plainclothes, some in uniform.
There were about a dozen in all. They came in with their guns drawn and
they grabbed Misty first.

"They threw me face down on the floor and handcuffed me behind my back,"
she said. "Then one of the cops stepped on the side of my face and pressed
my face into the floor."

Crying and nearly overwhelmed with fear, she tried to ask the cops what was
going on. The reply: "Shut the [expletive] up!"

"I thought my life was going to end," Misty said.

Shaunsia was sitting on the side of the bed by the time the cops reached
her. One of the officers pushed her onto her back and dove on top of her.

"I'm screaming, 'I'm eight months pregnant. Please!' " she said.

The cop rolled her over and cuffed her hands behind her. She was wearing
only panties and a top. She was so terrified she urinated.

"I couldn't help it," she sobbed as she recalled the scene during an
interview. "I was so scared. I kept saying, 'What is going on?' "

With both of the women handcuffed, the cops, screaming obscenities and
other forms of verbal abuse, began searching the apartment for drugs.

"They were tearing up the house," Shaunsia said. "They broke my furniture,
broke the refrigerator, ripped up part of the floor, and I'm saying,
'There's nothing in this house.' "

The women were kept handcuffed for more than two hours. Shaunsia spent the
entire time sitting or lying in her soiled underwear on her soaked bed. She
asked to see a warrant but the request was ignored. She asked if she could
put on dry clothing and was told no. She wept as she listened to her
possessions being smashed in the next room.

"How can you do this?" she asked.

It turns out the raid was a mistake. And the mistake happened on the same
day that another contingent of cops, also looking for drugs, mistakenly
raided the Bronx apartment of an innocent man named Ellis Elliott. Mr.
Elliott was dragged handcuffed and naked from his apartment and was later
forced to wear his girlfriend's clothes. He was arrested and taken to jail
before the mistake was discovered.

Neither Shaunsia nor Misty Patterson was arrested. Some two hours after the
police smashed down their door, an officer announced: "We got the wrong
apartment."

Shaunsia, still handcuffed, said: "That's what we've been trying to tell
you from the beginning."

It is not clear how the foul-up occurred. The cops who raided the apartment
had a valid no-knock warrant. When no drugs were found in the Patterson
apartment, a warrant was obtained for a third-floor apartment in an
adjacent building. A Police Department spokesman said a raid on that
apartment yielded several arrests and 83 pounds of marijuana.

Police sources who would speak only if they were guaranteed confidentiality
said they did not believe such mistakes occurred frequently. "This is
bad," said a high-ranking department official. "Two in one day -- that's
bad. But I'll tell you what I honestly believe -- I don't think this
happens that often. When you tell this story, try not to smear the 38,000
people in the department."

Joseph Kelner, a lawyer who is representing the Pattersons and Mr. Elliott,
said none of them had previously been in trouble with the law. He said,
"The close proximity in time of the two incidents seems to indicate a
pattern of misconduct by a tiny minority of police officers who have a
'don't care' attitude about the rights of individuals."

It is difficult to overstate the terror that is provoked by these
inherently dangerous commando-like raids on the premises of innocent
people. It is the sort of thing you would expect from a totalitarian state,
not the municipal government of a city like New York.

Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company