Another Isolated Incident
A village resident said that police conducting drug raids early this morning targeted the wrong house where they roused his family out bed, pointed a machine gun at his 13-year-old daughter and threatened to shoot their poodle…
David McKay said he, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and his brother-in-law were sleeping at 5:30 a.m. when they heard banging on the door of their townhouse at 36 Sharon Drive. When they went to open the door, at least 10 police officers forced their way into the home, he said.
"Their guns were drawn, they were screaming 'Where's Michael, Where's Michael,' " McKay recounted hours later in a telephone interview from Nyack Hospital, where he took his terrified daughter for treatment after she had an asthma attack and fainted following the ordeal.
McKay said he was still groggy from sleep but tried to explain that there was no one named Michael in the house.
"They pulled me outside in the freezing cold in my underwear, manhandle my wife, point a gun at my daughter and they won't even tell me what they are doing in my house," said McKay. "It was terrifying and humiliating beyond belief."
It was part of a broad joint federal/local drug sweep for pot involving more than 200 cops from at least 13 different government agencies. More:
McKay said the officers forced his wife, Jamie, and daughter out of their beds. The family's dogs were barking and police threatened to shoot them, McKay said.
McKay said he was uncertain how long the police were in his home at 36 Sharon Drive, but at one point he heard them discussing a nearby residence. When he took the dogs out for a walk a short time later, he saw police in front of that home, located on the same side of the street.
When the police were preparing to leave, McKay and his bewildered family asked them again what they were doing and why they entered the house.
"They wouldn't say," he recalled. "All they would say was 'You'll read about it in the paper tomorrow.' "