WRONG HOUSE RAIDED

Police Realize Error After Drawing Guns

MIDDLESEX - Undercover drug investigators burst into a home and drew their
guns on two women before realizing they were at the wrong house.

Estelle Newcomb said she was humiliated that her home had been raided and
that her sense of security was destroyed.

Police told Newcomb they would replace the door they kicked in last weekend.

"That's not replacing our nerves, our comfort, our peace of mind on our
property here," Newcomb said.

Police said the mistake happened this way: An investigator with the Middle
Peninsula Drug Task Force saw the car of an informer sent to buy marijuana
parked in front of the wrong house. The informer drove to the right house
about 100 yards away and bought the marijuana. The informer later gave the
investigator the marijuana, and the investigator assumed it came from the
house where he had seen the informer's car.

Newcomb, 50, said she was working on her computer around 9:40 p.m. Friday
when her dogs started barking. She looked out her window and saw several
men charging toward the front door.

The investigator said he kicked in the door, and other officers told
Newcomb to get down on her hands and knees. He said he recognized Newcomb
from a nearby convenience store and then saw her 80-year-old aunt in the house.

"I knew this was not right," said the investigator, who asked not to be
identified because he works undercover. "To be honest with you, it was
sloppy police work - not being thorough enough."

On Saturday, the investigator obtained a search warrant for the correct
house and later confiscated about half a pound of marijuana worth $2,880.

Adam Weston, 22, was charged with felony possession of marijuana with the
intent to distribute. He was released on $5,000 bond. Sherry Brokenborough,
24, was charged with misdemeanor possession of marijuana and released.

This was not the first mistaken drug raid in Middlesex. In July, an
operation involving the Middle Peninsula Drug Task Force, state police and
the National Guard raided a suspected marijuana patch that turned out to be
tomatoes.