Indiana police stormed into a home without a warrant late last month after breaking the door open and arrested a father and son, claiming they had “compelling evidence” of domestic violence taking place inside the Lafayette home.
However, the compelling evidence was a seven-year-old video from another home in another town showing two people who were not even at the house that Lafayette police had entered without a warrant, according to the 52-year-old father, William Neal.
The incident took place on May 21, resulting in Neal and his 18-year-old son being arrested on charges of resisting police, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail.
The only resistance seen from two videos recorded from inside the house is the men refusing to step outside after the cops busted the door open.
“You better have a warrant,” Neal says in the video recorded by his son showing the cops standing outside the open door with guns and tasers drawn. “You just broke my f–king door.”
“We have a video of someone being beaten inside this house,” one of the cops tells him as he remains standing outside the doorway.
At one point in the video, the cops grab Neal’s girlfriend by the wrist, Tammy Cooper, pulling her outside the home.
“Come outside, or you’re going to go to jail,” one of the cops tells Neal.
“I feel like my life is in danger,” Neal says, remaining seated on a chair in the living room of the home. “Ain’t nobody in this house but me and my kid and my girlfriend.”
Seconds later, at least five officers enter the home and arrest the father and son, who both spent the night in jail before they were released the following day.
After his release from jail, Neal filed a complaint with Lafayette police, then posted one of the videos on Next Door with the following caption:
“This is what the Lafayette police department does when they trample over the rights of taxpaying citizens….no warrant nor the right house. This was last night at 11:30p my son and girlfriend were manhandled by a group of tyrants and I was put in jail on trumped up charges. I have filed a complaint with the LPD and my charges along with my son’s were put on hold….these types of cops are hoodlums and need to be fired asap. let’s make those tyrants famous in Lafayette.”
Online court records from Tippecanoe County do not show any charges filed against the men that night so it appears as if police are having second thoughts about pursuing those charges.
But Neal is still outraged over the incident.
“I actually want their jobs,” Neal told the Journal & Courier, the Lafayette daily newspaper. “They need better officers out here. I pay taxes. There’s no way I should be paying my taxes to people like that that’s being tyrants and bullies.”
Police told Neal they were responding to a 911 call, but when questioned by local media, they confirmed the call did not come from the home they had entered.
“Due to the nature of the call and need to ensure the safety of all individuals involved, officers made entry into the residence,” Lafayette Police Sgt. Shawn Verma told the Journal & Courier. “Subsequently, two adult males were arrested for resisting law enforcement.”
It is not clear at this time who made the call, but Neal told WLFI-TV that the video in question involved his other son, Michael, and his girlfriend, Leslie, and had been recorded in another town seven years ago.
“Officers had received compelling evidence suggesting a domestic battery and confinement had occurred with persons at the address,” Lafayette Police Chief Scott Galloway said.
But Neal is angry over how they handled the situation.
“I can understand you trying to do your job, but there’s a right way and a wrong way,” he told the Journal & Courier.”And everything they did, man, was the wrong way.”
