

I live in the Washington Heights part of New York City. At about 7:30 am a loud bang happened in my door and about 12 agents proceeded to shout POLICE, OPEN THE DOOR!!!!! I looked through the peephole and saw that they were ready to just BREAK into my apartment so I opened the door....they promptly proceeded to handcuff me (at this point I am almost naked and wearing nothing but boxers), and did the same with my roomate.



They sat both of us in our living room (handcuffed, half-naked, and asked us questions about our identity and whether we knew some kind of fugitive (they showed us a picture of someone neither of us had ever seen)....after supposedly looking us up in their database we came out as clean....so they just said "thank you for your patience we did a mistake" I tried to ask for more information but they just said "we are looking for a fugitive" and thats why we did this...and then left the place....



Washington heights has been notorious for drug activities in the past but I think that this is no reason for cops not to do their homework and barge into my place. This could have easily been avoided if they would have just looked up my name and found out more about me...for they did not bother searching my apartment after finding out who I was they left......both me and my roomate feel hurt and "targetted" we are the only single, colored males living in our building, he is gay and i am straight but both of us attended ivy league schools ( and decided to move uptown to save $$$), are fully and gainfully employed and just do not fit the mold of a criminal.



The cops did not harm us in any way nor they damaged any of my things but it was very humiliating to be naked AND handcuffed in your own living room full of strangers when I have done nothing. I cannot help but think that a simple search towards my background (or my roomates) or a simple stake out outside of my apartment would have accomplished whatever they were trying to do when they came into my spot. This was absolutely NOT necessary but I dont know if we should complain, who to complain to in the first place, or if we should just "suck it up" and keep on living our lifes.........

My Apartment was (wrongly) raided by the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and explosives....About 12 agents with bulletproofs vests came into my apartment and handcuffed me and my roomate, then promptly left the place when they found out they did wrong. I feel angered, offended and disillusioned by our system. Is there anyway I can put in a complain of any sort to stop this from happening again? This is their website: http://www.atf.gov/