Texas Police Chief Placed On Leave After His SWAT Team Raids Wrong House, Kept It Hidden From Officials

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A police chief was placed on leave after failing to notify city officials about a January 22 raid in which a SWAT team infiltrated the wrong house.

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Galveston Police Chief Doug Balli is currently on paid administrative leave while authorities investigate a raid on an innocent family’s home last week. According to the Daily Mail, Erika Rios, 39, said she and her two children were awakened around 2 a.m. by the sound of SWAT members raiding their home, with 15 flashbangs smashing their windows and wooden bullets fired through the home. Rios, her 16-year-old son, and her 18-year-old daughter were handcuffed and placed in a police vehicle, causing an estimated $5,000 in damages.

Authorities said they were looking for a 17-year-old male suspect named Cameron Vargas, who was allegedly involved in a fatal shooting near Rios’ home on January 20. However, it was later revealed that Vargas was mistakenly identified as a suspect, and that he had visited the family’s home earlier that day but was not present during the raid.

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Balli said in a press conference two weeks prior to the raid that the department was targeting drug dealers in the area due to the number of fentanyl overdoses in the area. The SWAT team who was involved in the raid were a part of that training.

‘SWAT is trained in a specific way to raid a home, which includes working from the outside in. They need to ensure there is no threat to themselves. Police work is inherently dangerous and anytime we have a warrant, we do a threat assessment and since this was related to a murder case, the risk to ourselves increased.’

Rios further explained she has to fix her double-paned windows, a heater, and a broken down fence. She says the heat stopped working because the wiring was tore up during the raid.

‘We have eight double-paned storm windows that they shot through, which will cost at least $1,300, a broken-down fence and a heater that won’t work because they tore up the wiring in our attic. ‘When the officer found the other camera, he started laughing and said, “who keeps cameras in their living room. I’ve been left with traumatized kids, no heat in my home and busted windows, all because they were looking for somebody who didn’t even live there, who was also innocent. I’m trying to repair what I can and heal my kids, but it’s hard as a single mother. It has been a whirlwind and it was all so unnecessary.’

Vargas was initially charged with the murder of Malik Dunn,25, and was held on a $250,000 bond and his mother said she was disappointed with the allegations.

‘This has been a traumatizing experience that no one should ever go through. We are glad our son’s innocence was proven, but he should have not spent one second in jail. Cameron is an amazing and respectful young man and did not deserve to be slandered and wrongfully accused or even seen as a suspect.‘

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