ST. LOUIS • Authorities on Tuesday morning again raided a St. Louis home where police officers had shot and killed a man while serving a warrant in June.
No shots were fired in Tuesday’s raid, but police kicked in the front door about 5 a.m. Tuesday and threw a “flash-bang†device into a children’s bedroom, residents there said.
Police said the raid Tuesday came as they executed a search warrant in a robbery investigation. Two men were arrested, and guns and stolen merchandise were seized, police said.
Two boys, ages 6 and 10, were sleeping in the room where the flash-bang device left behind some shattered glass on the floor and bed. It exploded on the corner of the bed, burning a hole in a blanket and charring the mattress, said the children’s mother, Gina Torres. The children were shaken but unhurt, she said.
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The home in the 5400 block of South Kingshighway is the same house where , 21, as they tried to serve a warrant on June 7.
Police said Hammett, who was suspected of being involved in the sale of illegal guns and drugs, fired at them with an AK-47. Hammett was Torres’ son. and held vigils and marches for justice in the case.
After that June raid, and “a quantity of marijuana,†though they haven’t said how much.
Tuesday morning, city officers executed a search warrant with the help of FBI in a robbery investigation, St. Louis police said. Torres said police took away three young men who aren’t related to her but who sometimes stay at the house.
Two men were arrested, and stolen property and multiple firearms were recovered from the home, said Schron Jackson, a city police spokeswoman.
Police told Torres that her home had been under surveillance for about a week, with officers watching the men come and go, she said.
“Police are saying that, supposedly, one of the kids robbed somebody and took a phone†from one of the robbery victims, Torres said.
Police confiscated cellphones, including Torres’, and handguns, including one from Torres, two that belonged to her father, and one from a man who was sleeping in a chair in the front room. The gun was under his leg. Torres said all of the guns were legally purchased.
Police tactics
Torres wanted to know why the officers had to raid her home and couldn’t have instead arrested the men on the street or at their relatives’ homes. She said officers told her they thought her home on Kingshighway was being used by the men as a safe house.
She complained about the flash-bang device thrown into the children’s room. She also said her father suffers from breathing problems and other medical issues and needed an ambulance about the time of the raid, but the police activity delayed paramedics.
Torres said she fears that police are targeting the house to try to force the family out. She is angry that the flash-bang device came so close to her sons, including a 10-year-old boy who is autistic.
“They could’ve been killed,†Torres said. “I don’t care what that cop said, that ‘flash-bangs don’t kill kids.’ They could blow up your (expletive) face.â€
A comforter that had been covering the window like a curtain had a scorched, blackened hole about 8 inches in diameter. Torres said the flash-bang made the hole.
Over the doorway to that bedroom is a photocopy of a photo of Hammett that says “Vinny’s Room.â€
The house still has reminders from the June raid that killed Hammett. On a wall leading to the bedroom are at least 15 bullet holes, underneath framed pictures of a hunting dog and a Victorian era woman. Those bullet holes have been there four months.
One of the witnesses to Tuesday's raid was Robert Holbrook, 23. He is a friend of the Torres family. Holbrook was asleep on a chair in the living room when the raid began. Beams from police weapons were shined on his head, he said.
"I had beams on my head and I heard 'FBI' right as they busted down the door and threw a flash-bang and it rolled right toward the kids," Holbrook said.
He said he had his handgun tucked underneath his right leg. A police officer yelled, "'That one's got a gun,' and you could hear him clutch his rifle up," Holbrook said. They confiscated his gun.
Hammett was one of , the highest number in a decade. All have been armed, according to police. One stabbed an officer and the other seven pointed a firearm at officers, with three actually firing shots, police say.
State Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., who has been active in protests against police violence, was at the Torres home a few hours after Tuesday's raid. After visiting with the family, Franks and another man headed to a store to get something to board up the broken window.
