No-knock search terrified Raleigh mom and kids. And it was the wrong home.
Yolanda Irving had just settled into bed with a bottle of water and a bag of Cheetos, ready to watch a TV cop drama, when she heard her 12-year-old son yelling at the top of his lungs.
“SWAT! SWAT! SWAT!” he shouted as he and a friend ran into the apartment. Police stopped and handcuffed the other teen, as Irving’s son made it to a second-floor bedroom and dove onto his bed.
Irving jumped up and stepped into the dark apartment hallway on the chilly, gray day in May 2020.
“When I look to the left, that is when I see the SWATs pointing their guns at me, telling me to get down,” she said.
For two hours, police swarmed the apartment, searched three of her five children — including her partially paralyzed son — and threatened their dogs, said Irving, who drives a bus for special needs and homeless children for Wake County.
About a dozen officers picked apart their home looking for money and drugs, Irving said, while she and two of her children sat on the floor with their backs against the wall. Police let her now 23-year-old son sit in his wheelchair, she said.
They found nothing, she said.
As they were packing up to leave, Raleigh Police Detective Omar Abdullah, who appeared to be leading the investigation, handed Irving a search warrant for the first time. It had her address on it with a picture of an apartment door with a tree in front of it.
“There is no tree in front of my door,” Irving told Abdullah. “He was like, ‘We are just looking for the drugs and money.’”
“I am looking around, “ she said. “I am outside. Where is the tree at?”
There was no tree because Abdullah — who has since been accused of framing more than a dozen Black men in a fake drug scheme — had the wrong house.
Abdullah said something like “you can do whatever you want,” and walked away as Irving tried to wrap her head around what just happened, Irving said in interviews with The News & Observer this week.
“I never got an apology. I never got anything from the Raleigh Police Department,” said the 45-year-old mother.
“You have my kids scared. I am petrified. And you are going to tell me I could do whatever? No, no, no, ” she said. “On top of that, you are running behind my son with a gun. I could have lost him.”
Judge asked to release videos
On Wednesday attorney Abraham Rubert-Schewel asked Wake County Superior Court Judge George Collins to release some of the body-camera videos from the search of Irving’s home to the public. The request was also backed by Irving’s neighbor, whose family was also detained by police.
The Police Department opposed the request, said their attorney Sherita Walton, who explained the agency typically only supports releasing videos in situations in which there is death or serious injury.
Walton also said the release could interfere with future criminal or civil cases.
The officers were acting on information based on what was in the search warrant and changed their conduct as events unfolded, Walton said.
Collins denied the request to release the videos to the public, but he did allow it to be released to the attorneys for the families to investigate potential civil litigation.
In North Carolina, judges determine who can view law enforcement videos, The News & Observer has reported.
After the ruling, Emancipate NC, a racial justice nonprofit seeking criminal justice reform in Wake County, released a statement saying officials are “deeply disappointed.”
“What we saw today was the game being played by the rules law enforcement creates and not in the best interest of the public or transparency,” the statement said.
“Living people have just as much right as the dead to have the public see the trauma they suffer at the hands of police,” it said.
‘Raided without warning’
Irving said she wants the public to see what she went through and to highlight the impact of controversial, “no knock” warrants that she and her attorney say police used to barge into her home without notice or explanation.
“These two families were entirely innocent of any offense when their homes were raided without warning by Raleigh Police Department SWAT officers armed with assault rifles,” Rubert-Schewel wrote in an email.
“Incidents like these are a primary reason why police are equipped with body cameras,” he wrote. “So the public can see this footage, so we can think about policy changes together, and so as a society we can work to prevent this type of life altering experience from happening to any other innocent person.”
The Raleigh Police Department didn’t immediately respond to questions about using no-knock search warrants and whether they have concerns about how the search of Irving’s apartment was handled.
In September 2021, the city of Raleigh agreed to pay 15 people affected by Abdullah’s arrests $2 million to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit. The lawsuit contended the detective repeatedly used an informant who said people had sold him heroin, or in one case marijuana, that turned out to be fake.
The search of Irving’s apartment marked one of the final investigations involving Abdullah and the confidential informant. The informant has since been charged with obstruction of justice, as prosecutors started to dismiss drug charges in those cases and Abdullah was put on administrative duty.
Abdullah was fired in November, but hasn’t faced any criminal charges. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman has said the investigation is ongoing. Attorneys, activists and a mother whose son was arrested by Abdullah have criticized her inaction.
Rubert-Schewel, who also represented clients in the settlement, anticipates more lawsuits this year.
No-knock warrants
Calls for organizations to ban no-knock search warrants increased after the March 2020 death of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was shot by Louisville police officer after officers served a no-knock warrant on her apartment as part of a drug investigation into her boyfriend.
About six month after Taylor’s death, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police discontinued the use of no-knock warrants.
Under state laws, North Carolina officers must give notice of their authority and purpose before executing a search warrant unless that puts someone’s life in danger, according to an article in the Campbell Law Observer, a student publication on legal topics at Campbell University’s School of Law.
“No-knock warrants are issued in situations where the police have reasonable suspicion that knocking and announcing their presence under the particular circumstances would be dangerous, or that it would allow for the destruction of evidence,” the article said.
The body-camera footage from the search of Irving’s home is needed to bring transparency and accountability to the use of no-knock warrants, said Kerwin Pittman, a community organizer with Emancipate NC.
“This could happen to anybody,” Pittman said. “We must put safeguards in place.”
Back to the police raid
Irving’s then 12-year-old son was playing outside with two teens on May 21, 2020, when a group of police wearing tactical gear and holding assault rifles approached the apartment, Irving said he told her.
One teen ran away, but Irving’s son and the third boy ran inside the apartment. Police followed them with their guns drawn, the teen told his mother. Police caught and handcuffed one teen downstairs, as Irving’s son ran upstairs.
After police secured the house, Irving and her children were positioned along a downstairs wall.
“I am asking ‘what is going on’,” she said. “Finally, one of them said they are looking for the drugs and the money. “
Irving tried to calm her kids by making conversation with the officers, asking them to stir her crock pot as they opened her cabinets and dug into her sugar and flour.
At some point police brought into the apartment a couple Irving didn’t know. They remained for about 15 minutes as Irving and the other woman tried to soothe the agitated man and the children, but it was hard because everyone was so scared, she said.
After about 90 minutes, officers started to leave.
Irving looked around trying to understand what had happened when Abdullah returned with the search warrant.
Abdullah told Irving that they had video of a man selling drugs in her home, she said.
“I am a single mom of five kids. I have one son that is paralyzed,” she said. “I ain’t did nothing but go to work and came home. That is all I did.”
After the incident, her kids didn’t want to go to school or go outside. Irving said she kept worrying the police would come back.
She moved in December.
Blamed herself
At first Irving blamed herself, telling herself she had stayed in that apartment complex too long.
It was an affordable option after her son was hit by a car on North Raleigh Boulevard in 2014 and suffered a traumatic brain injury.
“This apartment was just there to help me get back on my feet,” she said.
Now, she said, with the concern raised about Abdullah, Irving is “disgusted.”
“I am just not understanding why you couldn’t just man up and apologize,” she said.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 3:43 PM with the headline "No-knock search terrified Raleigh mom and kids. And it was the wrong home.."
