SWAT Team Shows Up for Wrong-Something "Man in Distress" Call, Prosecutors Hound Him for Three Years Instead of Apologizing
When a friend is in distress, don't call the police. A horrifying story out of Fort Bend, Texas, via Fox 26 in Houston:
It started when a friend concerned for Chadwick's emotional well-being called Missouri City police to Chad's Sienna apartment where he'd been distraught, drinking and unknown to anyone, had gone to sleep in the bathtub.
A SWAT team was summoned.
"They told a judge I had hostages. They lied to a judge and told him I had hostages in my apartment and they needed to enter," said Chadwick.
Chadwick did own a single shotgun, but had threatened no one, not even himself. Chadwick's firearm possession apparently prompted SWAT to kick in his door, launch a stun grenade into the bathroom and storm in, according to Chadwick, without announcing their identity.
In Texas. A SWAT team. Over a shotgun. They weren't done:
"While I had my hands up naked in the shower they shot me with a 40 millimeter non-lethal round," said Chadwick.
A second stun grenade soon followed.
"I turned away, the explosion went off, I opened my eyes the lights are out and here comes a shield with four or five guys behind it. They pinned me against the wall and proceeded to beat the crap out of me," said Chadwick.
Police brought Chadwick in, put him in isolation for two days, and then prosecutors took their turn with Chadwick:
"Instead of apologizing to this man and asking let us see what we can do to help you to make you whole again, they concocted criminal charges against this man, one after another, after another," said Quanell X who believes the prosecution of Chadwick was designed to fend off civil liability.
Ft. Bend County District Attorney John Healy sought to indict Chadwick on two felony counts of assaulting a police officer, but a Grand Jury said no law was broken.
It could have stopped there, but Healy's prosecutors tried misdemeanor charges of resisting arrest, calling more than a dozen officers to testify. Those charges were dropped as well.
A month ago, three years after the SWAT raid, a jury found Chad Chadwick not guilty of interfering with police. With tears in their eyes members of the jury offered the exonerated defendant comforting hugs.
The Staten Island DA should take some notes maybe. This is how prosecutors operate to get those conviction rates up. Chadwick had no criminal record and cops found nothing illegal in his house, so there was no criminal charges to threaten Chadwick into a plea deal with.
Rather than owning up to a mistake, which would be paid for on the taxpayers' dime anyway, the legal system in Ft. Bend dug in and harassed Chadwick for three years. The DA says he stands by his decision to keep trying to prosecute a man police targeted with a SWAT team for no crime and "wasn't keeping a tally" on how much it cost.
