State Police Investigating SWAT Raid Gone Wrong

Swat team. Photo by matthrono via Flickr Creative Commons\
A botched no-knock SWAT raid of a Worcester apartment that traumatized a family four of is under official investigation by the Massachusetts State Police.
“This will be a wide-ranging review,” state police spokesman David Procopio told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette on Tuesday.
The investigation was ordered by Col. Richard D. McKeon, the recently appointed superintendent for the State Police.
The Worcester family reported that they were physically harassed and terrorized by police officers kitted up like soldiers in Fallujah while they were getting ready to go to work. The raid, authorized through a warrant obtained by Trooper Nicholas Nason, was conducted with the hopes of apprehending Shane Jackson as well as two guns.
Jackson, who was arrested in early August and booked as living at a different address than the apartment raided, and the two guns were not found in the apartment. Marianne Diaz and Bryant Alequin said they had not heard of Jackson until the raid. Nason reported he had information from a confidential informant Jackson was living in the apartment.
Procopio told the T&G that while State Troopers led the investigation that brought them to the home of Diaz and Alequin, it was Worcester police officers that conducted the raid on the apartment.
Diaz reported she was apprehended while naked and forced to remain that way for over 10 minutes while her children looked on. She was later frisked by a female officer.
The attorney for the family wants Governor Charlie Baker to appoint an outside, independent investigator to look into the raid.
“How on earth could you ask those guys to be impartial?” said family attorney Hector E. Pineiro.
Baker told the Boston Globe this weekend that he found the raid to be troubling.
“You hope something like this never happens,” said Baker.
Baker did not comment on whether or not he thinks there should be a separate independent review of the incident.