Cops Throw Smoke Grenade Into Room With 2-Year-Old, Family Says They Warned Cops in Apparent Wrong Door Raid

The Salinas family in Oxnard, California, filed a
federal lawsuit against the city and its police department for a
raid in April in which they say police threw a smoke bomb into a
room with a 2-year-old in it despite the mother and the child’s
older siblings warning police there was a 2-year-old was in the
room.

The raid was part of a three-city
operation targeting gang-related crime in which the Oxnard
Police Department, the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, the Ventura
County District Attorney’s office, and the FBI participated. Oxnard
police would not say whether the raid on the Salinas family was on
the wrong house, but Courthouse News Service reports one of the
suspects in Oxnard had previously lived at the Salinas address,
before the family moved there four months ago.

Courthouse News Service relays how the lawsuit described the

start of the raid:

The Salinas family says they were sleeping on April 16, around 4
a.m., when they were awakened by scuffling footsteps and vehicles
outside their condominium. When Jose Salinas drew the curtains of
his bedroom window, he saw the barrel of a policeman’s gun pointed
at him.

Police broke the front windows of the home and set off three
smoke bombs. Police then crashed through the front door with guns
drawn, yelling, “Get down and put your hands to your head!”

With laser guns pointed at them, Paulina and Jose Salinas were
handcuffed and put to their knees. Their 10-year-old daughter and
6-year-old son were shoved into a corner.

That’s when cops went for the 2-year-old. According to the suit,
the boy’s foot was injured by shrapnel, suffering first-degree
burns, and the family was detained for four hours. Police said
after the raid that the boy was taken to a hospital, treated, and
released. The department won’t comment now, not even to confirm a
wrong-door raid, because of the ongoing suit.

h/t Stanton Smith