An Ohio mother is demanding an investigation because, she says, a mistaken police raid caught on a doorbell camera injured her little boy.
Dozens of police officers targeted her aunt’s home in a Cleveland suburb last Wednesday. The woman said a flash-bang explosion blew out a window right next to her son, who was on a ventilator at the time.
Police say the search was appropriate, and they dispute the woman’s story.
The Elyria Police Special Response Team said it was executing a search warrant for a minor connected to a burglary. Ring video captured the raid as the police broke down the front door.
Courtney Price said police broke a window and deployed a flash-bang near her 17-month-old son, Waylon, who was already on a ventilator.
“All I seen was lights flashing and smoke coming into the house,” Price said. “I didn’t know what to do because there was guns pointed at me. I wanted to run to him, but I knew if I ran to him … they could’ve shot.”
Moments later, Price was taken outside and handcuffed. “I kept screaming, ‘My baby, my baby is on a ventilator. My baby’s in here.'”
Price said Waylon was hospitalized with burns to his body, and was covered in glass and smoke. “His diagnosis is chemical pneumonitis from the chemicals in the flash-bang,” Price said.
But the Elyria Police say they and Price confirmed the child did not sustain any visible injuries at the scene, and that “any allegation suggesting the child was exposed to chemical agents … is not true.”
Price’s aunt, Redia Jennings, has rented this home for a year. She said the police have come multiple times searching for a suspect that didn’t live there, and she says she doesn’t feel safe anymore.
“All of our furniture was broke,” said Jennings. “It’s now stained. They just walked all over everything.”
The family plans to take legal action against the department.
Meanwhile, the city’s mayor said he is “deeply concerned,” and is reviewing bodycam footage which will be released to the public as an investigation into the department’s conduct is underway.
