Home security footage shows police in Elyria, Ohio, raiding the home where Courtney Price was staying with her infant son, who has respiratory and heart issues (screengrab via YouTube/WOIO). Inset: Waylon Price on a ventilator after the police raid (via GoFundMe).
A mother in Ohio is claiming that dozens of local police officers converged on the wrong home and executed a raid, breaking windows, ramming down the front door, and setting off multiple flash-bang devices that sent her 1-year-old son — who has respiratory and cardiac issues — to the intensive care unit. Police have denied any wrongdoing as local government officials say they’ve ordered a “complete review” of the incident, describing the allegations against the department as “extreme and deeply concerning.”
According to the mother, Courtney Price, she was preparing to feed her son, Waylon May, at about 2:12 p.m. on Jan. 10 when she heard “the loudest knock on the door.”
“When I got to the top of the steps i noticed it was police and then the next thing I know the door bust open, the windows are busting out around us,” she wrote in a Facebook post about the incident. “I have multiple guns pointed at me and i just freeze in fear, I could see smoke coming through the window that was busted right where my baby was laying & i knew he couldn’t breathe it in.”
Price said Waylon was born prematurely and has pulmonary hypertension and a hole in his heart, local CBS affiliate WOIO reported.
Price said she was screaming “my baby, my baby, he’s on a ventilator,” but that officers “jerked” her out of the house and handcuffed her. She and the child were the only occupants in the house at the time.
“Not one had the decency to check on my baby, get the glass off him or get him out of the house that had smoke in it,” she wrote. “Every single one was evil enough to sit there and let my baby breathe in that air and struggle to breathe.”
Price then claimed a medic used a stethoscope to listen to her child’s heart and said, “sounds clear,” an observation she claimed was false. She also claimed that during the incident, at least one officer said, “sorry, wrong house”
Police claimed that Price told detectives she had already intended to take her son to the hospital due to his “pre-existing illness unrelated to the tactical operation,” but they brought her to the facility because she didn’t have a car seat.
“Elyria Police detectives called Lifecare Ambulance to the scene to provide any medical attention that EMS deemed necessary,” police wrote in a press release. “Lifecare Paramedics arrived on the scene, and the medics assessed the child and provided transportation to a nearby hospital.”
Price, who is from Kentucky, said she was staying at her aunt and uncle’s home in Elyria because Waylon was scheduled to have open-heart surgery at Rainbow Babies in February, a procedure that has since been delayed, WOIO reported. Her aunt and uncle also say they’ve lived in the house for about a year, and that the warrant being executed on Jan. 10 was in connection to a teenager had not lived in the home for over a year.
The police department responded two days later with their own Facebook post, claiming they used only two “flash-bangs” which were “deployed outside of the residence.
Doorbell surveillance footage posted by WOIO showed at least two dozen officers taking part in the raid and at least one flash-bang being shot through a window into the home.
Police also said that the home was the “correct address of the search warrant.” The department did not immediately respond to an inquiry from Law&Crime regarding the current known address of the individual named in the warrant.
Police also denied having any hand in the child being put in the ICU.
“Any allegation suggesting the child was exposed to chemical agents, lack of medical attention or negligence is not true,” the department wrote.
Elyria Mayor Kevin A. Brubaker released police-worn body camera footage of the incident.
“The footage captured clear video and audio of the search warrant’s execution, including officers’ actions both inside and outside the home,” Brubaker said in a statement posted to Facebook late Tuesday. “The footage also includes interactions with both the mother and child throughout the incident. While the footage captured clearly illustrates what did and did not occur when the search warrant was executed, it does not answer questions of what led to the warrant itself. To answer those questions, I have also requested an external investigation.”
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