Armed Florida police officers mistakenly stormed the home of a black war veteran while he was searching for a criminal who was actually in prison.
Naomi Simmons, a 27-year-old who served in Afghanistan, told NBC Miami She was at home on June 14 when she heard a banging sound on her seven-year-old daughter’s bedroom window.
When she went outside to see what was happening, “two guns were pointed at me,” she said.
“I said, why are you pointing your guns?” she asked, noting that the Miami-Dade police officers did not identify themselves before she opened the door.
They then told her they were looking for a man named Marquise Wiley, who was wanted on weapons charges. His ID listed his address as Simmons’ home, she said.
Naomi Simmons, 27, said Miami-Dade police wrongly raided her home on June 14 while searching for a criminal
She described hearing a banging sound on her daughter’s bedroom window and going outside to see officers pointing their weapons at her.
However, Simmons and her daughter had lived in the Miami Gardens home for more than a year, had never met Wiley and knew nothing about him.
When police finally left her home, convinced that Wiley wasn’t hiding somewhere, Simmons said she sat back on the couch and was able to track down the suspect’s whereabouts using only her phone.
She then discovered that Wiley was already in custody and working on two criminal cases in Broward and Miami-Dade counties.
“I was able to find him with no tools and a cell phone on my couch,” Simmons told NBC Miami, adding, “He was in jail before they even got to my door.”
Police said they were looking for Marquise Wiley, who was wanted on weapons charges. His ID listed his address as Simmons’ home
The 35-year-old man with a lengthy criminal record had been in Broward County Jail since January to face charges for his involvement in a masked robbery of a jewelry store in 2020.
On May 3, Wiley was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years and 3 months in prison.
A judge subsequently issued an order to return Wiley to Miami-Dade County for his ongoing gun case, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
The Broward Sheriff’s Office has since confirmed that he was held in jail the entire time until he was transferred to a state prison on June 13 — just one day before Miami-Dade police raided Simmons’ home.
Miami-Dade police now say they checked local, state and federal databases to determine whether Wiley was in custody before they raided Simmons’ home. However, they failed to check the Broward County Jail database.
They also apparently didn’t realize that the court documents last linked Wiley to the address they raided in 2018, and that he had only lived there for a year. according to Atlanta Black Star.
However, police have attempted to blame the error on the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, saying officers should have checked Wiley’s status before turning him over to state security for his pending gun case.
However, a spokesperson for the department said they will investigate the incident.
Simmons, who served in Afghanistan, said the ordeal gave her nightmares
Simmons said she was traumatized by the ordeal.
“I don’t sleep, I still have nightmares,” she told NBC Miami nearly a month later.
‘I already suffer from PTSD from my time in Afghanistan.’
She described the situation as “frustrating and scary because you see all these things on the news about people who look like me, men and women who are being killed because the police showed up at the wrong house — and the police showed up at the wrong house.”