Police Raid Wrong House a 2nd Time in Drug Hunt

A weeklong police crackdown on rock cocaine dealers in Southeast San Diego ended on a sour note early Sunday when officers broke into the wrong house for the second time and allegedly used physical force on one of the residents.

George Taylor, 44, said he was asleep at 2 a.m. Sunday on a living room couch when police smashed a window, pointed rifles at him and ordered him to put his hands in the air.

“They came through the front door, they lowered their guns on me, threw me to the floor and stepped on my neck,” said Taylor, a former General Dynamics employee who underwent spinal surgery a year ago.

“They yelled (obscenities) . . . I told them, ‘I don’t have to shut up. You’re supposed to be next door.’ All he did was grind his foot in a little deeper.”

A police lieutenant at the scene confirmed that officers broke a window but “didn’t know what went on inside,” police spokesman Bill Robinson said.

The police special response unit, consisting of officers from the SWAT team, the narcotics street team and the gang detail, served a search warrant on a West Street residence at 2 a.m. Sunday after one of the occupants sold cocaine to an undercover officer, police said. The officers entered the house by burning metal grating off the door with a cutting torch, police said.

“One of the officers, who was on the SWAT team at the scene, apparently became confused and broke a window and some SWAT officers entered an apartment adjacent to the rock house,” Robinson said.

The incident marked the second consecutive weekend that police mistakenly smashed a window of the Taylor house. Taylor said that some of the same officers who smashed a bedroom window last weekend, while his brother and sister-in-law were asleep, participated in Sunday’s raid.

Boards now cover the bedroom window that police broke the first time. Taylor said that the police said last week that they would repair the window but they have failed to do so.

Robinson said he was uncertain whether police made the same error last week, but he confirmed that officers had previously responded to the house next door to the Taylor residence.

“The SWAT team has been there three times,” Robinson said. “Each time they have been there, the house has been more fortified than before.”

Lt. William Howell, the police supervisor in charge of the operation, was unavailable for comment.

“We will investigate the whole operation, including the complaints from the family,” Robinson said. He added that police would have more information today.

Early Sunday police issued a press release on the drug sweeps that made no mention of officers breaking into the wrong residence or the number of people arrested, if any, at the West Street rock house.

“If they felt it was a big enough deal, they would have put it on the press release,” Sgt. Leon Pearce said.

According to the press release, police raided 32 houses and made 27 arrests in the last week and recovered six small-caliber revolvers, four shotguns, several thousand dollars in cash and “a substantial quantity” of rock cocaine.

Seven of the 27 persons arrested were believed to be Los Angeles gang members, police said.

A team of officers led by Sgt. James McGinley broke into the West Street house using cutting torches, according to the press release. Once inside, officers encountered additional grating blocking off hallways.

At the same time, SWAT officers barged into the opposite side of the house next door, where Taylor, his brother John, 46, and his sister-in-law Betty, 54, were sleeping.

George Taylor, who worked for both General Dynamics and the Navy before his back injury, said he was awakened by shots of tear gas and the sound of breaking glass

nearby before officers broke his living room window.

Because police had cut off the electricity, Taylor said, all he could see was an officer’s flashlight and a helicopter overhead. He said that tear gas entered the house, making it difficult for his brother and sister-in-law to breathe in a back bedroom.

Police spokesman Robinson confirmed that SWAT officers used tear gas.

“They didn’t use tear gas on (the Taylor residence), but some of the fumes from (the rock house) wafted over to their place,” Robinson said.

Taylor said he kept telling police they had the wrong house, but one officer continued to shout obscenities and tell him to “shut up.”

“I told him, ‘I’m not going to shut up. You’re going to have to shoot me.’ ”

Taylor said he had difficulty understanding the officers’ conduct.

“These guys are imported from Florida or somewhere. They’re nuts. They had a ball. I’m glad they took care of the situation next door, but why twice here? They came in and physically and verbally abuse disabled people here.”

Taylor said his brother suffers from multiple sclerosis and his sister-in-law has only one functional arm.

Police apologized for any inconvenience and drove the Taylors to a National City motel and paid for one night’s lodging, Taylor said. But late Sunday, the Taylors were back in their house wondering where they would spend the night.

“We’ve been trying to contact police all day long,” Taylor said. “Everybody is off. Nobody is responding. The window is still out. We can’t sleep here tonight. It’s getting cold.”

A police spokesman said Sunday night that a supervisor would contact the Taylors to see whether they needed to spend another night in a hotel. But by 9 p.m. no one from the Police Department had called, Taylor said.