An Illinois mother is seeking justice after she says her pre-teen son was shot and had his kneecap shattered during a botched SWAT raid on their home earlier this year.
Crystal Worship filed a lawsuit on Thursday in the Cook County Circuit Court against Country Club Hills and Richton Park Police Departments, as well as several officers, after a SWAT team raid ended in gunfire.
The lawsuit alleges that at around 5 a.m. on May 26, almost two dozen SWAT officers with “army fatigues with black cloth covering their faces and wearing goggles” broke into Worship's family home while Worship, her boyfriend Mitchell Thurnam and her three sons, aged 12, 13 and 18, were asleep in their beds.
Officers from both police departments were executing a search warrant they received for Thurnam on charges of drug possession and possession of weapons with an expired Firearm Owner's Identification card.
“Then the next thing you know we hear, ‘Police, police!'” Worship told CBS Chicago in an interview prior to her court filing. “Then we hear the flash bangs.”
The lawsuit says that a number of officers entered the boys' bedroom, shouted “commands at them,” and instructed Amir, 12, to sit on his brother's bed. An officer also ordered him to “put his shoes on.” Following the command, the cop snatched the shoes back and “asked which pair of shoes in the room were his” before inspecting the inside of a shoe with a flashlight.
In the process of…
