PITTSBURGH – A local couple alleges that City of Pittsburgh and Borough of Monroeville police officers violated their civil rights and those of their family by unlawfully using paramilitary force to break into their house, detain them, destroy their belongings and contaminate their home with tear gas, this past January.
Kelly Angell (individually and as parent and natural guardian of her children, K.R.M., K.M.A., I.C.M., C.C.A. and Sade Angell) and Derone Lewis filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on July 12 versus the City of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh Police Officer Stephen Mescan, Monroeville Detective James Monkelis, Commander John Doe No. 1, Negotiator John Doe No. 2 and Officer John Does 3-20.
According to the lawsuit, the Monroeville Borough Police Department utilized cell phone location data to determine that a teenage shooting suspect named Daronte Anthony Brown was in the area, and further determined that he was the alleged owner of a home on the 1100 block of Paulson Avenue in Pittsburgh.
However, the plaintiffs say Brown was never inside their home – which instead belonged to plaintiffs Angell, Lewis and Angell’s five children, one of whom is autistic.
After obtaining a warrant for the premises, a SWAT team appeared there on the morning on Jan. 22 and proceeded to raid the home, per the lawsuit. This involved breaking the home’s windows, destroying the plaintiffs’ furniture and clothes and even throwing tear gas grenades into the home.
About 20 SWAT team officers then allegedly broke down the home’s doors and converged inside, ordering Angell and her family members outside into the cold morning air as they searched the home.
The family claims they were not permitted to put on additional clothes to protect them from the winter weather, as the SWAT team proceeded to raid their home for the next three hours.
The suit says that SWAT team officers bashed holes in the family’s walls, destroyed their furniture, smashed their televisions, ripped ventilation ducts from the walls and punctured air mattresses.
At the conclusion of the raid, it was determined that Brown was not and had not been on the premises after all. The suit adds that a Pittsburgh Bureau of Police official later came to the scene and confirmed to the plaintiffs that police should not have broken into their home.
According to the suit, though Pittsburgh and Monroeville police officials said repairs would be made to the family’s home, none have yet been attempted, let alone completed.
The litigation adds the windows on the third floor of the house have not been repaired, and residue from the tear gas remains on the plaintiffs’ carpets, floors, furniture and walls.
For counts of invalid warrant/unlawful entry, excessive force, unlawful detention, failure to knock and announce, damage to property and property interests and concerted activity/failure to intervene, all in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the plaintiffs are seeking compensatory and/or punitive damages, costs and attorney’s fees and such other relief as this Court deems appropriate and/or equitable under the circumstances.
The plaintiffs are represented by Margaret Schuetz Coleman and Alexander B. Wright of O’Brien Coleman & Wright, in Pittsburgh.
The defendants have not yet obtained legal counsel.
U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania case 2:23-cv-01268
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com