Advertisement

Boston Will Pay Family $500,000 After Mistakenly Breaking Into Home On No-Knock Warrant

Boston Police Department headquarters in 2018. (Joe Difazio for WBUR.)
Boston Police Department headquarters in 2018. (Joe Difazio for WBUR.)

The city of Boston will pay a family a half-million-dollar settlement after banging down the wrong apartment door in an early morning, no-knock raid in November 2018.

The federal lawsuit says the Regis family, including the parents and three children aged 15, 5 and 4, were asleep when Boston police officers used a battering ram to force open the family's Brighton apartment. The officers then handcuffed the mother, father and 15-year-old girl at gunpoint, and searched the apartment for about 20 minutes.

The warrant was actually for the apartment next door.

Boston agreed to settle the lawsuit after federal mediation last fall. A judge had previously refused to dismiss the lawsuit against the city.

Boston has spent at least $15 million on police misconduct claims over the last decade.

Under the state's new police reform law, no-knock warrants will only be allowed if there are no adults over 65 or children in the home, and if lives could be endangered if officers announced themselves.

Related:

Headshot of Ally Jarmanning

Ally Jarmanning Senior Reporter
Ally is a senior reporter focused on criminal justice and police accountability.

More…

Advertisement

More from WBUR

Listen Live
Close