A Trenton, New Jersey woman says she was hospitalized after police mistakenly raided her home.
Sonia Valpais-Daniels, 66, told NBC10 she was inside her home on Locust Street with a friend Wednesday at 7:45 a.m. when police suddenly broke through her door.
“The police come in here with the gun, push me and her to the floor,” Valpais-Daniels said. “I say, ‘What happened? What happened?’ She said, ‘No talking. Don’t say nothing. Police will explain with you later.’”
Valpais-Daniels said a SWAT team then used a flash bomb in her kitchen.
“A lot of smoke over here,” she said.
The raid ended however when the officers realized they were in the wrong home, according to Valpais-Daniels.
“Two police came down again and said, ‘I’m sorry. That’s my mistake. It’s the wrong house,’” she said.
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Valpais-Daniels said her door was damaged due to the incident. While city crews fixed part of the frame, she told NBC10 her family has to use a 4x4 to make sure it’s locked properly at night.
Valpais-Daniels' sons said their mother had to be hospitalized and treated for high blood pressure after the incident. The family is now exploring options for legal action.
“You can’t go around making these mistakes,” Valpais-Daniels’ son Robert Medina said. “Somebody got to be held accountable. If we make mistakes, we have to pay the price for our mistakes.”
NBC10 reached out to Trenton Police for comment. We have not yet heard back from them. Trenton Police Lieutenant Stephen Varn told the Trentonian however that an apparent intelligence gap led to an “erroneous breach of the wrong residence.”
