Pubdate: Thu, 29 Mar 2001
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Copyright: 2001 San Francisco Chronicle
Page: A - 16
Contact:  901 Mission St., San Francisco CA 94103
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Author: Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/raids.htm (Drug Raids)

PANEL OKS $103,000 FOR BAD COP RAID

Project Apartments Invaded By Mistake

San Francisco -- The San Francisco Police Commission agreed yesterday to 
pay $103,000 to settle a lawsuit by residents of a housing project who 
allege that police mistakenly raided their homes in 1998.

Twenty-one residents of the Martin Luther King Jr./Marcus Garvey complex 
will be compensated $78,000 under the tentative agreement, which calls for 
police to meet regularly with complex residents.

The balance of $25,000 would cover attorney fees under the settlement, 
which the commission approved without discussion yesterday but which now 
requires approval by the Board of Supervisors.

On the early morning of Oct. 30, 1998, police descended on the projects at 
Turk and Ellis streets, raiding 13 addresses to crack down on a gang.

But King-Garvey residents said that police had been ill-prepared with wrong 
addresses, and that innocent grandmothers and small children had been 
manhandled and handcuffed as riot-geared officers stormed their homes. 
Residents filed a federal civil rights lawsuit for damages.

"We don't want this ever happening again," said attorney Matthew Kumin, who 
represented the plaintiffs.

Police said the raid had resulted in 13 arrests and the seizure of seven 
handguns and $4,000 in cash. Five of the 13 people arrested were convicted.

The housing project was supposedly a hideout for a gang called the Knock 
Out Posse, and police at the time said some residents had thanked them for 
their intervention.

But the residents who complained said that doors had been kicked in and 
that officers carrying laser-scoped guns had pointed their weapons 
indiscriminately at small children and grandmothers and shot to death a 
5-year-old pit bull named Bosco.

The owner of the dog, Andre Dow, has refused to settle the case, but the 
settlement awards $10,000 to the woman and family who lived where the dog 
was shot.

Lela Martin, a then 58-year-old foster parent of more than 20 children over 
the years, would get $12,000 in the settlement. She said her severely 
disabled 22-year-old foster daughter had urinated on herself when an 
officer yelled and trained a gun on her, shouting commands she could not 
understand.

In another claim, Trevella Silas would receive $12,000 under the settlement.

Silas, then 21, said officers had come to the wrong home when they burst 
into her apartment, leaving her son crying as they strode past presents set 
out for his second birthday party the next day.

"I guess we won't be getting invitations," one officer allegedly joked, 
suggesting that the operation was a fitting gift for her son's birthday.

"They ended up shattering a lot of innocent people's lives," said Kumin.

Kumin said that police had since changed tactics in such raids, but that 
the raids had damaged police-community relations that now needed to be rebuilt.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager