NYPD officer being investigated for breaking in Nashville family's home, using racial slur

Natalie Allison | The Tennessean

Show Caption Hide Caption How to submit a tip to Crime Stoppers Nashville Crime Stoppers allows people to anonymously submit tips to crimes they may have information about. Here are several ways you can submit a tip to Crime Stoppers.

Detectives in Nashville are investigating an officer with the New York Police Department accused of breaking into a family's home in 12 South while visiting Music City on vacation.

The episode, which took place around 2:30 a.m. July 9, has left the family traumatized after the man, who victims reported appeared to be impaired, allegedly kicked in their door and made threats once inside the home, using a racial slur on the way out.

"I'm screaming at the operator, 'He's in my house! He's in my house,'" Conese Halliburton recalled of her frantic plea to 911 dispatchers to send help.

Halliburton, 40, said a neighbor's surveillance footage shows the man was staying at an Airbnb one house down.

UPDATE: NYPD officer being investigated for breaking in Nashville family's home, using racial slur

She was in her bedroom and not quite asleep early that Monday morning when the family's three dogs began barking inside the house that she shares with her four sons, ages 20, 17, 11, and 8.

The 17-year-old looked out a front window and noticed a man standing in the yard, shouting. He then came to the door.

Halliburton described hearing a "boom" as the unknown man, described as tall, white and with closely cut dirty blond or brown hair, kicked in the door and began repeatedly screaming "This is my motherf---ing house."

Her two oldest sons yelled for him to leave and held him back in the hallway of the home as Halliburton remained on the phone with dispatchers. When Halliburton said that the 911 operator told her officers were down the street and almost to the house, the man turned around and walked out, she said.

In surveillance footage with audio shared by Halliburton's neighbor, the man can be heard saying "Try to shoot me, and I'll break every f---ing bone in your f---ing neck," before calling them "f---ing n------."

The Metro Nashville Police Department confirmed that a New York Police Department officer is being investigated in the case and came to Nashville earlier this month to be questioned. No charges have been filed, and the investigation is ongoing.

"If my sons would have fought him, he's already properly trained to take down people," Halliburton said, adding that the family was all in danger based on the suspect's erratic behavior.

The family's door was damaged in the episode.

Reach Natalie Allison at nallison@tennessean.com. Follow her on Twitter at @natalie_allison.