MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― Two months ago, a terrified mother called 911 to report strangers breaking into her North Minneapolis home. The intruders were not violent criminals but members of the Minneapolis Police Department's SWAT team. They were raiding the wrong house after an informant gave investigators bad information.
The I-TEAM tracked the 17 hours that led up to the raid.
Shortly after seven in the morning on Saturday, Dec. 15, a young woman walked into the downtown police precinct and said her boyfriend had threatened her. She told police Jermaine Brown belongs to the Rolling 60's Crips street gang, and she claims he pointed a gun at her inside his home where they live together at 1321 Logan Avenue North.
Officers from the department's Violent Offender Task Force (VOTF) had been targeting the gang's drug dealings for months. They are brought in to check out her information.
By dinner time, the investigation put the VOTF officers outside a house on Oak Park Avenue North. Police had heard members use it to store guns and drugs.
As VOTF officers watch the house, Jermaine Brown walks out. The officers, including their supervisor Lt. Andy Smith, arrest Brown and take him to jail. Then they decide to go after guns his girlfriend has told them about.
Several hours later, VOTF officers meet with Hennepin County Judge Herb Lefler at his home. They convince him it is urgent to move fast before someone ditches the guns since Brown is now behind bars.
The judge agrees to allow them to conduct two high-risk search warrants. One is for the house where they found Brown. The other is for the Logan Avenue address his girlfriend said is their residence and where, she said, he has hidden more guns. That includes the gun he allegedly used the night before to threaten her.
The SWAT team is called in to conduct the raids. Less than 90 minutes later, the SWAT officers raid that first house on Oak Park Avenue. Police find three guns in the home along with mail addressed to Brown.
Despite clues that this was actually Brown's home, the SWAT team is still sent to its next stop.
It is now just after midnight on Dec. 16. Yee Moua is watching television while her husband and six kids are safe in their beds.
Strange sounds, including breaking glass, frighten her. She thinks it is violent criminals so she calls 911 while her husband wakes up and grabs his shotgun.
Vang Khang, Moua's husband, fires three shots from the second floor bedroom. The intruders fire back more than 20 rounds through the door. It's recorded on a 911 phone call tape.
On the same tape, men can be heard yelling "Get to the floor!" and "Where's the gun?"
It turns out that the intruders are not criminals. They are members of the MPD's SWAT team hunting for Jermaine Brown's guns at the wrong house. Officers take Khang into custody and search his bullet-riddled home for weapons.
His wife, Moua, can be heard pleading with the officers to tell her what happened.
Police see lots of family photos and Hmong decorations in the Khang home. However, the only gun they find is the shotgun Khang used to protect his family.
That night a police spokesman defends the raid in which two officers were hit. Their protective gear prevented them from getting hurt.
"I don't think it was a mistake on our part, we did everything correctly," said Sgt. Jesse Garcia on that Sunday night in December.
Two days later, Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan meets with the Khang family. He admits mistakes were made and promises Khang that he won't be charged with shooting at the SWAT officers.
He also hugs one of the young children who went through the shootout in their own home.
"The fact that nobody was very seriously injured or killed, we were very lucky," said Dolan
He promised a full investigation of what went wrong and to find out who dropped the ball on the front of the case.
"I don't blame the SWAT team. I do take into consideration whether to consequences were the mistake was made intentionally," said Dolan.
The I-TEAM has looked into what could have prevented the mistaken raid. It's standard in cases like this to do surveillance outside a house and check for any police calls to the address.
Investigators also could have run a simple property search online and learned that the Khang family owned the house on Logan Avenue since moving there four years ago.
So far, the I-TEAM has found no evidence that any of those steps were taken on the Logan Avenue house to confirm the information provided by Brown's girlfriend.
Brown has been charged with assault and as a felon possessing firearms. By then police had confirmed his real address is on Oak Park Avenue where they arrested him. Brown denies the guns found there are his, and claims they belong to his girlfriend.
His attorney, Hennepin County public defender Mary Moriarty, told the I-TEAM that Brown will give police a DNA sample on Wednesday to prove he has no connection to the guns police found during the raid at the Oak Park Avenue home.
Meanwhile, the Khang family has hired two lawyers to represent them. The lawyers include includes former U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger.
"The police were the ones there illegally and they started this problem," said Heffelfinger.
The legal team also includes Sia Lo, a prominent Hmong American attorney. Lo said the raid shook trust between police and the Hmong community.
"They fought so hard to make sure they that are going to be respected and see this happen is a tremendous blow to the sacrifices they made," said Lo.
The attorneys say it will take a lot more than patching up bullet holes and replacing glass to heal an innocent family's pain.
Dolan said he wants to make them feel safe at home again.
"To come out of this event successfully for me would be having this family back in the city of Minneapolis and feeling comfortable being there. Anything beyond that is going to be a horrible loss for us," he said.
