Thursday, EPD performed a SWAT raid at 616 east Powell Avenue, only to find out, the people inside the home aren't to blame.
An 18-year-old girl and her mother live in the home, you can imagine their shock during that raid, which broke windows and a storm door.
But EPD says, given the serious nature of the threat, the raid was well worth it to keep everyone safe.
"I was sitting on the couch, watching the Food Network and on Facebook or whatever and I heard this big crash and the windows busted," said Stephanie Milan.
Thursday was not a typical day for Milan and her mother, who were inside their Powell Avenue home when the SWAT team's two flash bangs broke their windows and storm door.
"It was really a shock. I'm like, I think they have the wrong house," Milan said.
EPD says callers alerted them to posts on topix.com. They say police officers are often the brunt of verbal attacks, but these threats were different.
"One of them specifically said that on July 4th, that an officer's home was going to be shot up, made reference to killing our children and our spouses," said EPD PIO Sgt. Jason Cullum.
Cullum tells us Milan and her mother aren't to blame, but the threats did come from their IP address.
"Because there were multiple posts from their IP address, we believe that it's somebody that's close that would be near there on more than one occasion on the same evening."
"They told us that someone's using our router that wasn't protected to threaten the cops and it wasn't us," said Milan.
Cullum says due to the severity of the threats, if police had the situation to do over, they wouldn't change a thing.
"I hope they catch the people who did it because what they did was really wrong," Milan said.
"This is direct threats of killing people, of blowing things up, and that's not freedom of speech," Cullum noted.
Police say the situation shows how important it is to protect your wireless Internet connection with a password.
EPD says they are still reviewing the electronics collected from the home. They are still searching for the suspect.
We'll keep you posted on their investigation.
One reason you should always password-protect your wireless router:
The Evansville Courier-Press reports,
Stephanie Milan, 18, was relaxing in her
family’s living room Thursday watching the Food Network when a heavily
armed squad of Evansville police officers arrived on the front porch.
Dressed in full protective gear, police
broke the storm door of the home at 616 East Powell Ave. — the Milans’
front door was already open on the hot summer day. They also broke a
front window. They tossed a flashbang stun grenade into the living room
that made a deafening blast. A short distance away, a local television
crew’s cameras were rolling. The police had invited the station to
videotape the forced entry of the residence.
Stephanie Milan said she managed to
remain calm because she knew her family hadn’t done anything wrong.
Still, she was stunned and confused.
After speaking to Milan and her
grandmother, Louise, police determined those inside the house had
nothing to do with their investigation.
Police were executing a search warrant
for computer equipment, which they said was used to make anonymous and
specific online threats against police and their families on the website
topix.com.
The threats were indeed specific and serious, but apparently did not
come from the Milans. ”They told us that someone’s using our router that
wasn’t protected to threaten the cops and it wasn’t us,” Milan told NBC local 14, Evansville, IN.What doesn’t make sense is this: if the police took this threat so seriously as to bust into a house with grenades, and then determined someone was using that house’s wireless router, why did they not even search the surrounding houses at all? Granted, the router could have been used by a passer-by with a wireless device, but could also have come from a neighbor who has been using that router for a long time. Why does one house get blasted and the others don’t even get questioned?
Local News 7 ends its report with this moralistic note: “The Constitution does not give a person the right to make threats or use intimidation against another person.” Unless, of course, you’re on the SWAT team.
ProLibertate.com has a longer analysis.
http://www.14news.com/story/18854572/epd-swat-team-flashbangs-house-related-to-threats-against-epd-families
http://americanvisionnews.com/3991/swat-team-blasts-into-wrong-home-due-to-unprotected-wireless-router
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