Stephanie Bures and her daughter, Samari Boswell. Screenshot : CBS 2

When they aren’t bungling the investigation into accused Subway sandwich eater Jussie Smollet’s alleged purchased beatdown, Chicago’s finest are raiding the wrong home during a 4-year-old’s birthday party with guns drawn.




NBC News reports that on Feb. 10, T.J. and his family and friends were enjoying his birthday party when it was crashed by Chicago Police. The police “poured peroxide on his presents,” “trashed” the apartment, “screamed profanity and insults,” and left the boy’s birthday cake “smashed,” according to a news release from the family’s attorney, Al Hofeld, Jr., on Tuesday.

T.J.’s mother, Stephanie Bures, and other plaintiffs in the suit allege the officers had the wrong house, noting that the suspect they were looking for had not lived at that address for almost five years, the suit viewed by the news station alleges.




But that didn’t stop some 17 officers from busting into the South Side apartment to make sure that there were no drugs hidden inside the birthday cake and ensuring that there weren’t any bombs disguised as birthday presents.

Chicago Police told NBC News that they do not comment on pending litigation.



“The children were afraid that they and their families were going to be shot,” the lawsuit says.



The release also said officers “unlawfully questioned” two children without their parents present and “joked and laughed throughout the raid.”

The lawsuit alleges that the police’s behavior during the raid violated the constitutional rights of the children and their family, and traumatized T.J. and his sister.


From NBC News:

The officers’ actions were “not just the product of an avoidable mistake that was the result of sloppy police work, but they displayed force that was excessive, unnecessary, unreasonable, and without lawful justification,” the lawsuit says. The family’s attorney said his law firm did an online search of the police’s intended target and were able to quickly determine the man’s current address. Hofeld also said the raid was not an isolated incident, and that the Bures family’s lawsuit is the “fourth of a series of excessive-force cases against the City of Chicago alleging Chicago Police are holding guns on children and terrorizing families on the South and West Sides.”


Glad to know that we can count on the police to take unlawful gathering inside a home to celebrate a child’s birthday seriously.

Also, WTF is wrong with the Chicago Police?