DENVER \u2014 Kirsty Shelton was at home preparing lunch and watching television with her daughters and their grandmother when they were startled by loud banging on their apartment door by a SWAT team looking for a man who lived across the hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shelton\u2019s mother told them they had the wrong apartment but, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against the Denver officers, she and her daughter were ordered outside at gunpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the officers then entered the apartment, they encountered two girls, ages 5 and 6, in their bedroom. According to the body camera footage of the June 2023 incident, an officer told them they could play there and that he would get their grandmother, but the girls began to scream.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Police then put the family, including another adult who had just gotten out of the shower, into a locked police car for about an hour and took over their apartment as they continued to search for the suspect, according to the lawsuit. It says police knew the man they were looking for lived in apartment 307, not 306 where the Shelton family lived, and that the numbers were clearly marked. It claims police didn\u2019t admit to making a mistake but instead denied the raid ever happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The operation\u2019s commander wrote in an after-action report that, due to the layout of the apartment building, the family was \u201ccontacted, advised of the situation and evacuated for their own safety,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shelton said the police officers\u2019 actions traumatized her family and required them to get extensive counseling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe police promised an investigation but instead covered up the raid, failing to produce their report to this day, over a year and a half after the incident. They continue to pretend that this terrifying raid never happened,\u201d she said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Denver police declined to comment due to the pending litigation as well as an ongoing internal investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two of the Shelton family\u2019s lawyers, John Holland and Dan Weiss, said some reports by individual officers failed to mention that they even went into the family\u2019s apartment as they searched for a suspect who was wanted for serious violent crimes. The man was arrested hours later in the apartment directly opposite theirs, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Holland and Weiss filed the lawsuit in state court under Colorado\u2019s 2020 police reform law, which does not allow officers to try to block lawsuits under the claim of qualified immunity, as they can in federal court. It alleges that at least 10 officers violated the family\u2019s constitutional right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures, and that the family was subjected to excessive force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n