I wonder what this little 6 year old boy had to hide...?
Posted on 05/16/2003 7:37:03 PM PDT by HAL9000
New York (AP) - A 57-year-old woman died of an apparent heart attack Friday after police detonated a flash grenade and handcuffed her during a raid on the wrong apartment.Alberta Spruill, a longtime city employee, was pronounced dead about an hour after a dozen heavily armed officers broke into her home at dawn.
"We're deeply saddened," said Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly. "It's a tragedy. This should not have happened."
An informant said that Spruill's sixth-floor Harlem apartment was being used by an armed drug dealer to stash cocaine and heroin, police officials said.
After obtaining a search warrant, officers forced open the woman's door and tossed in a flash grenade, which creates a distraction by producing a loud noise and a blinding flash of light. Kelly said the grenade was used because it was believed there may have been guns and a dog in the apartment.
The officers grabbed Spruill, who was dressed for work, handcuffed her and put her in a chair. Then police realized the inside of the apartment did not match the informant's description.
The officers apologized to Spruill, who told them she had a heart condition and began to have difficulty breathing, Kelly said.
An ambulance was summoned and Spruill went into cardiac arrest on the way to the hospital. An autopsy was scheduled for Saturday.
A lieutenant who supervised the raid was put on administrative duty as police officials investigated how the wrong apartment was raided, and whether they used the flash grenade properly, Kelly said.
Spruill worked in a personnel office of the Department of Citywide Administrative Services, and had been on the city payroll 29 years.
Residents of Spruill's high-rise apartment building were angry and shocked, describing the victim as a hardworking, churchgoing woman who minded her own business.
Get over it. She was expendable.
Now keep going, NYPD, you have a lot more people to kill before victory can be assured.
Side note, his son is Greg Kelly, fox news anchorman, who was embedded with the troops.
Where's the SPCA on this one?
That sounds like a pretty severe punishment to me. True accountability for the jackboots.
Could it be that she had a heart condition, and the excitment of cops busting in and handcuffing her was just too much to take? Not everyone is as tough and healthy as you.
Why are the cops using "flash grenades" exactly?
This is ridiculous. Look, we are reaching a point where posse comitatus is virtually meaningless.
Because for all practical intents and purposes, the police ARE the military.
I wonder what this little 6 year old boy had to hide...?
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