Naseem Stevens was asleep in his bedroom Wednesday evening when he says Chicago police officers kicked in his door.
“I looked up and it was three officers in my room with their guns pointed at me.” the 18-year-old said. "Telling me to lay on my stomach put my hands behind my back.”
In the next room his 15-year-old brother was playing a video game. The teens say five officers entered the apartment and handcuffed them.
“I was just scared. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was going on,” Naseem said.
It turns out the police were in the wrong apartment. The management company had provided them with a key.
“Everybody goes home to a peaceful night’s sleep now we have to worry about someone entering our home with the key," Karonna Williams, the boys' mother, said.
In a statement Chicago police say: “Area Central detectives were executing a search warrant for a kidnapping and sexual assault investigation. Upon entering and securing the apartment, detectives realized the incorrect residence had been entered and CPD deeply regrets the error.”
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Rahsan Gordon, a civil rights attorney, says that doesn’t fix the damage.
"These are children who have ... you are asleep and have guns drawn on him first time in his life and these are by police officers," she said.
The family says the incident has left them traumatized.
I do not want to stay here. I do not feel safe," Williams said. “I don’t have bad kids. And the fact that last night my son slept with his door propped closed with things on his door, it doesn’t make sense.”
