'It's been traumatizing': Families seek justice, claim Raleigh police wrongfully raided their homes in 2020
Two Raleigh families, leaders with Emancipate NC and lawyers held a briefing Monday to discuss claims that Raleigh police wrongfully invaded the private duplex homes of Yolanda Irving, Kenya Walton and their children in May 2020.
Irving and Walton were among the speakers Monday outside the Raleigh Municipal Building.
“It’s been three years, we’re going on three years, [and] we still have no justice,” Irving said. “It’s been hard. It’s been traumatizing.”
Irving said in a May 2020 raid, officers burst into their apartments without warning. Officers were at the wrong address.
“We were two moms that [were] just minding our business, going on about our days, and they interrupted our lives,” Irving said.
She said her 12-year-old son doesn’t want to come outside anymore.
Walton said her son experienced similar anxiety.
“He barely goes out [of] the front door,” Walton said. “He has rapid weight loss.”
The two families filed a civil rights lawsuit in February 2022 about the raid. The families also want an apology from Raleigh police and an end to no-knock warrants.
“We want justice, and that’s what we’re standing here for,” Irving said.
On Monday, the city told WRAL News it cannot comment on pending litigation.
The Raleigh Police Department said its policy, which was updated in May 2022, is that the department will not seek or serve no-knock warrants.
Det. Omar Abdullah led the no-knock raid to search for drugs and money. Abdullah has since been fired from the force, accused of using false information to create bogus drug charges.
“They chased me and Ms. Walton’s kids down with guns, and they [were] innocent,” Irving said.
The families say they were made to feel like criminals during questioning from the city's attorneys.
Emancipate NC and its attorneys are representing these families in the lawsuit against the city. The case set to go to mediation on Feb. 6.
Emancipate NC leaders are calling on the city to settle with the families who have already undergone so much.
Emancipate NC connects RPD complaints to Tyre Nichols case
Emancipate NC executive director Dawn Blagrove called on Raleigh leaders to “do the right thing.”
“After we all watched the vicious murder of Tyre Nichols in Memphis and the murder we have yet to see of Darryl Williams here in Raleigh at the hands of RPD, Emancipate NC released a statement that said … that was entitled ‘It’s systemic racism, dummy,’” Blagrove said. “It’s systemic racism. It is systemic racism.
“It is systemic racism that allows the police all over the country, but specifically here in Raleigh to create special units and give them so much leeway that they think and behave as though they are above the law.
“It is systemic racism that allows the police department to insulate those officers who blatantly violate the trust and cause harm to the people they are supposed to protect.”
Blagrove also said “institutional racism” allows the city of Raleigh to pay lawyers fighting the legal challenges from families instead of paying the families themselves.
Williams died on Jan. 17 after police officers attempted to take him into custody on Rock Quarry Road near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard. Williams yelled that he had a heart condition as officers used a Taser to detain him.
Kerwin Pittman of Emancipate NC also spoke on Monday afternoon. He and other Emancipate NC leaders called on the city to drop its fight against the lawsuit.
“Why are you not righting this wrong?” Pittman said. “Why are you continuing to victimize this family that was already victimized the first time by Raleigh Police Department?”
Blagrove accused the city of wasting money on the legal battle, money that could help these mothers and their children with counseling and therapy.
“We call on the people of Raleigh to demand the folks you have given your power to use it in a way that is fair and is equitable and is just,” Blagrove said.
Walton says she feels robbed of her children's innocence since May 2020.
“It’s a whole lot of stuff that was taken from those kids that those kids will never get back, and they have to suffer,” Walton said.
