By Tony Richards
Editor in Chief

Two Anderson Avenue families say they are still trying to recover after early-morning police raids on their apartments terrified them, and produced nothing more than a half-joint of marijuana between the two homes. Both families have filed complaints with the Civilian Complaint Review Board, and are considering taking legal action.

Flexton Jr. and Lashauna Young say they were asleep shortly after 6 a.m. on August 28, along with their four children—Tyreef, 12, Rashawn, 11, Tanice, 9, and Tysheerah, 6, —when the sound of police battering rams at their front door awoke them.

“The first hit woke me and my wife up,” Flexton Jr. said. “The second hit woke my son [Rashawn] up. The third hit, they was in the apartment.”
Young Jr., who worked for several years as a bouncer and is now unemployed because of a disability, said that when officers initially broke into his home, he feared for his life.

“They can’t really see my hands that good,” Young Jr. remembered thinking. “I don’t want to be another Amadou Diallo.”

Flexton, who was naked at the time, said he was then handcuffed and dragged across the floor of his home and deposited in the bathroom. Lashauna, who provides daycare for neighborhood children out of the family’s apartment, said an officer kicked her in the back as she lay face down on her bed, after she had turned her head in an effort to see where her kids were. Eventually, Lashauna Young said, she was dressed by a male officer.

Records from Bronx-Lebanon hospital show that Young was treated for “muscoloskeletal pain” and given a prescription for an anti-inflammatory drug used to reduce swelling.

In the bedroom closest to the front door, 11-year-old Rashawn awoke after the second of three crashes on the family’s front door, but remained in bed because he was scared. When officers got to his bedroom, Rashawn said, they pulled him out of bed by his arm and threw him against the wall. “All I was thinking about,” Rashawn said, “was ‘Are mommy and daddy ok?’ And that’s when one of the officers brought my mommy in the room, and I started crying.”

The Youngs said their four children were then gathered in Rashawn’s bedroom as their parents remained handcuffed and officers scoured their apartment for guns and drugs. The children said they were told that if any such items were found, their parents would go to jail. Rashawn said that when he first tried to enter the bedroom, an officer was blocking the door, and, upon saying “excuse me,” he was commanded by another officer to crawl underneath the officer’s legs.

David Padilla, the superintendent of 974 Anderson Avenue, visited the Young apartment shortly after the raid had finally ended and described finding extensive physical and emotional damage. “I came to see him [Flexton], and his apartment was like you were in a war zone,” Padilla said. “Everything flipped around, the walls were broken into.” Padilla described the family as “hysterical.” Padilla said the Youngs are responsible tenants who always help keep the building clean.

One floor above the Youngs, 21-year-old Luis Pastrana said he was in his living room watching television when he and his mother, Maria Sanchez, heard sounds of crashing and screaming coming from the Young apartment. As he went towards his bedroom to retrieve his daughter Johana, 3, Pastrana said he was struck on the left side of his face by an officer’s gun. Pastrana produced pictures of his bloodied left ear, which he said required seven stitches.

Medical records from Lincoln Hospital show that Pastrana was treated for neck and back injuries that same day, was prescribed pain killers and had a suture removed from his left ear.

“When I saw him [shortly after the raid],” Padilla said, “he had a lump on the side of his face.

Pastrana said he was handcuffed and placed on the kitchen floor, while his mother was handcuffed on the living room floor. Both the Young and Pastrana families said they were unable to get the names of officers because, they said, officers hid their badges as soon as they realized they had raided the wrong houses.

Padilla supported this account. “When I was in the building,” Padilla said, “They had their badges flipped over so nobody could read their badge.”
Luis Pastrana’s 10-year-old niece, J. Ramirez, said officers kicked open her bedroom door. “When they kicked the door open and said ‘Freeze!’ I got scared and went under the blanket,” Ramirez said. “They pulled me and put me in Luis’ room.”

The Pastrana family said that while Luis and Maria were handcuffed on the floor, officers kept Luis’ nieces and daughter in Luis’ bedroom with the door locked. Ramirez said she was badgered by police who asked her if there were guns and drugs in the apartment; when Ramirez repeatedly said “no,” she said, officers continued to ask her and suggested she said “yes.”

Inspector James Essig of the 44th Precinct said he could not comment on the raids because the matter was under investigation. John Kelly, a spokesperson for the NYPD, had no comment as of press time.
Andrew Case, director of communications for the Civilian Complaint Review Board, said his organization registered 1,002 complaints citywide for improper entry by police officers in 2005, a sizeable increase from the 695 complaints registered in 2004, and an even bigger increase over the 595 complaints recorded in 2001. Case suggested the ability of civilians to file police complaints by dialing 311, beginning in 2003, was certainly a contributing factor in the increase.

Case added that a variety of circumstances can lead to an improper entry complaint, including instances where officers enter an apartment without a warrant, execute a bench warrant for an individual’s arrest by entering a home, or mistakenly raid a house other than the house listed on a warrant.
Case said improper entry complaints based on instances where officers entered a house listed on a warrant but may have been acting on erroneous information typically do not fall under CCRB jurisdiction. However, he said that allegations of abuse or misconduct once officers were inside the apartment would fall under the organization’s jurisdiction. Both the Young and Pastrana families have filed allegations of excessive force against the police.

The Young family said that, with the exception of one officer on the scene, no one apologized for the raid, while the Pastrana family said not a single officer apologized. No guns were found at either apartment, and no drugs were found either, with the exception of a half-joint of marijuana at the Young residence, for which Flexton Young was given a summons.
Both families said that they have suffered considerable trauma since the raids, with the children at both homes choosing to sleep together in the living room rather than in separate bedrooms. “All the girls are scared to go to the kitchen or the bathroom alone,” said Maria Sanchez, through an interpreter.

The Young and Pastrana families said that the recent raids were their first negative experience of any kind with police officers, but that their perceptions of law enforcement have changed considerably as a result of the incidents.

Rashawn Young said that he previously idolized the police after an officer rescued him from a would-be-abductor several years ago.

“Now,” he said, “I don’t want to be a cop no more.”