Chicago police officers handcuffed an 8-year-old boy earlier this year for 40 minutes in cold weather, according to a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

On the morning of March 15, Royal Smart was asleep in his home with his mother, siblings and other family when 20 SWAT officers, six plainclothes officers and five uniformed officers stormed the house, according to NBC News. It was before 6 a.m., and it was 32 degrees outside.

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Officers surrounded the house with a warrant and told the family to “come out with your hands up for your own safety,” according to the lawsuit. Chicago Police Department Sgt. Rocco Alioto said the officers were looking for an assault rifle with the potential to “penetrate body armor,” NBC Chicago reported.

As the family exited the home, the “officers’ guns were loaded, and their fingers were on the triggers,” the lawsuit says, according to NBC News. Smart’s mother, Alberta Wilson, asked the officers to put their guns down “because of the presence of the children,” but the officers refused.

All of the adults were handcuffed except for the mother of a 2-year-old child after she said she would have to put the baby on the ground, according to the lawsuit. Smart remained cuffed for about 40 minutes, and the adults in the home were cuffed for two hours.

"He’s hurting, he’s only eight, he can’t take it anymore. It’s wrong. The children have already seen things they’re not supposed to see," Wilson said, according to the suit.

"A short, soft-spoken, well-mannered boy, Royal did not give officers the least reason to handcuff him," the suit said.

The suit alleges the officers entered the home yelling and cursing: “Is there any f------ thing we f------ need to know before we go inside that f------ house?” one officer reportedly said.

The suit said the children are suffering from PTSD and will need "high quality, long-term, costly, psychological care and counseling.” Smart dreams of “police coming back and shooting the family,” the suit said.

The officers entered the house and flipped mattresses over, took cash and mail, and left a hallway-length hole in the ceiling to access the attic, NBC News reported. The hole in the ceiling released “plaster and noxious insulation stuffing,” causing another one of the children in the house, Roy, to have a two-week asthma attack.

Wilson is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages, NBC News reported.

Police said they did not know how old Smart was, according to NBC Chicago.

"The target of the search warrant was on scene, and while there was no weapon located during the search, the location searched was the same as described on the search warrant," Alioto said in a statement.