Juanita Thompson, an advertising professional, sat on a contemporary sofa in her stylish living room and wondered why a Howard County police tactical unit stormed into her home in the middle of the night to search for drugs.
"It was a really bizzare thing to happen to anyone," Thompson, 38, said yesterday, five days after police wearing hoods and helmets raided her townhouse in the 9400 block of All Saints Road in Canterbury Riding, a Laurel subdivision, and searched for illegal drugs.
Thompson said police placed her family in handcuffs for three hours.
"My family and I have never had any involvement with police, and to be met with a SWAT team is particularly traumatic," said Thompson, a former network radio executive. "The only thing I can compare it with is what I hear from people who were raped -- feeling that I was being violated."
Police raided her house at 12:45 a.m. last Friday and searched for drugs and drug paraphernalia, but found nothing. About 15 minutes later, another police unit raided the home of a neighbor, Martin Joseph Cummings, 33, and also came up empty. Cummings said police did not properly identify themselves when they burst through his bedroom door and awakened him. He said that raiders threatened him with violence and that he was held in a headlock.
During three-hour searches, police handcuffed Thompson and her three children, ages 16, 18 and 20. One of Thompson's daughters is away at college. Police did likewise with Cummings; his wife, 43; two stepsons 18 and 19; a nephew 13, and a sister-in-law 43.
Thompson is black and Cummings is a white man married to a black woman. One of his stepsons was arrested recently on drug charges, but Cummings said police did not find any drugs on him.
The incidents have prompted charges of police brutality and charges of racism aimed at neighbors in the predominantly white subdivision who reported drug activity. Police Chief Frederick W. Chaney has ordered an internal investigation of the raids.
The incidents came on the heels of a survey by the Maryland NAACP that called Howard's police department one of the five worst in the state in terms of brutality and citizen relations.
Sgt. Gary L. Gardner, a county police spokesman, said officers followed standard tactical procedures during the raid. He said they wore police patches on their black uniforms and letters on their ballistic helmets identified them as officers. The officers also wore badges on the bullet-proof camouflaged vests.
