DETROIT, MI

— Weed-whackers and lawnmowers typically whiz and rumble as they manicure the well-kept lawns in the neighborhood directly west of the Detroit Golf Club.

The sight of Detroit police vehicles filled with narcotics officers converging on and raiding a suspected drug house is not the norm. China Cochran, who lives with her family at 18030 Wildemere, says that's what happened at their home on June 9.

The ordeal traumatized Cochran and her family, shook her faith in city government and its police, she said.

"It's hard to be here," said Cochran a week after the raid. "I'm still shaken up... Everything is just running through my head.

"I really don't know what's going on, but I just feel like, 'How could this happen to me, and if this happened to me who else has it happened to,' because clearly we are just a working family."

Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said the department had evidence that indicated there was "probable cause" to believe illegal activity occurred inside the home.

Police did not find any drugs in the house, but did remove items they believe could be connected to an ongoing investigation.

"What (China Cochran) failed to say, which they discussed, was that her brother who resides at her residence was identified as the person connected to another ongoing felony drug case," Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens said in an email responding to Cochran's representation of what happened. " Details on this or any other narcotic ongoing investigation will not be released.

"The search warrant was legal, narcotics were purchased from the address on Wildermere, and (police) received several complaints from residents in the area and on the block regarding narcotics being sold from her residence.

"This information was included in the search warrant, which she had a copy of."

In Wayne County, the Prosecutor's Office reviews the police affidavit with request to search a person or location. If prosecuting personnel find there is "probable cause" to believe illegal contraband or evidence related to a crime may be obtained through execution of a warrant, it is presented to a judge or magistrate to be signed and executed by law enforcement.

The raid

It was Saturday afternoon and the China Cochran's home was full.

Cochran said she was in a sitting room toward the rear of the six-bedroom home with her mother, Sheryl Cross, 56, and four young nieces and nephews. Also in the house was her 62-year-old father, who requires nitroglycerin for a heart condition; her 72-year-oldgrandfather who has suffered "several strokes" and has diabetes, a 25-year-old sister and a friend of Cross.

"Wham, wham, wham," Cochran said she heard, as someone beat repeatedly on the front door.

Her mother "jumped up" and began to gather the kids. As Cochran approached the entrance hall, she said a barrage of people broke and entered through the door.

"The ones that kind of captured us, they had on masks," said Cochran. "I was asking, 'What are you here for? What are you here for?'"

Police handcuffed and directed the family to a large room with two couches and no curtains at the front of the home adjacent the foyer.

"Everybody is standing against the wall with their hands cuffed and were crying, we're like, 'What's going on?'" Cochran said. "We're just screaming and yelling and crying.

"I say, 'You have to tell me what's going on'... They told us were we're a drug house... They said you're selling dope in this house."

Police left, Cochran estimates, two hours after "tearing up" the bedroom of her 20-year-old brother, whom she said was working at a supermarket, her own and several others.

In the days following the raid, Cochran's father was hospitalized twice with anxiety attacks, which she believes were provoked by the police incident.

Use of Force

"Unless you have a crystal ball, we don't know what's on the other side of that door," said Stephens, who heads the Detroit Police Department's Public Information Office.

The raid occurred on the last day of the three-day drug sting conducted by Detroit narcotics officers that targeted 43 homes and resulted in 87 arrests.

Stephens said one of those raids resulted in a suspect shooting at, but missing, narcotics officers.

No arrests, as of Wednesday, had resulted from the raid at Cochran's home and she said her brother has never been detained, though police have since indicated that he is a suspect in an unsolved shooting.

Police seized a gun magazine with bullets, a digital scale and a Derringer gun that Cochran said her grandfather owned and didn't work.

Detroit police generally receive tips about drug houses from neighbors calling the police department's tip line, 313-224-DOPE (3673); or from an informant, said Stephens; and once investigators have information about an address, undercover officers perform "a buy" of illegal drugs prior to seeking a judge-signed search warrant and conducting a raid.

I was talking to a neighbor and "he said, 'You know you're the talk of the town,'" said Cochran's mother. "It was very embarrassing because there are no drugs here, and I would never allow my son to sell drugs in this home."

Cross said investigators handling Cochran's complaint told the pair that an undercover officer had previously purchased a "vile of marijuana" inside the home, but Cochran and her mother contend her brother has never sold drugs there.

Russ Talbert, 71, a 30-year resident of the neighborhood, lives across the street and about three houses north of Cochran. He said he's never noticed any unusual activity at the Cochran home.

Cochran made a public complaint about the raid at the Detroit Police Commission meeting on June 14 and was referred to an investigating officer.

After speaking at the Police Commissioners meeting, Cochran said the investigating officer told her: "You're saying you want us to go back out there and tell them what we have against your brother?"

"I say, 'Yes,' tell them because I need to know what going on," Cochran said. "I want you to tell them; if you've got something, tell them."

Cochran, who holds a master's degree in social justice from Marygrove College, said she teaches journalism to high-risk, "marginalized" children and has served publicly as a legal aid for the Wayne County Commission and as a public relations employee for former Councilwoman Alberta Tinsley-Talabi, who is now a state representative.

"I grew up in Detroit, but this incident has just made me lose all faith in this city," Cochran said. "Because I don't have faith in public service, I don't have faith in our safety system here and I don't have faith in our government because it clearly doesn't work for people.

"There are tons of people that are robbed and killed every day; and they broke in my house and they found nothing."

The five-member Detroit Police Commission formed in 1974 and as part of its duties reviews citizen complaints.

The Police Commission expects to receive a report on the incident from the Office of the Chief Investigator but the findings are not shared publicly, said Police Commissioner Jerome L. Warfield.

See Cochran's home on the map below: