DeRidder woman’s home mistakenly raided by police

DeRidder, LA (KPLC) - It was the last thing a DeRidder woman thought would happen in the middle of the night – officers executing a search warrant broke down her door, only to find out they were at the wrong house.

It happened around 11 p.m. on Wednesday, and homeowner Antoinette Hatch is still shaken up.

“We’re prepared to make this right and fix the property that was damaged to her residence,” Beauregard Parish Sheriff Mark Herford said.

Hatch said the damage is already done. Glass shattered on the floor after police knocked down her front door.

“This victim’s house was not numbered, so looking at the database that they looked at which identified her residence as the house that we had the search warrant for, there was no way to see and it was dark,” Herford said.

The task force said its search warrant was justified, but it should have been done right next door.

“Right now it’s showing that the database just had the house flagged as the wrong address,” Police Chief Craig Richard said.

Hatch said they stormed in, and it wasn’t until officers finished searching her home that they told her what was going on and asked her to confirm her address.

“‘This is 130 Martin Luther King.’ I said hell no, this is 134 Martin Luther King,” she said.

Hatch said soon after, the officers came back to apologize.

“They came back and said we’re so sorry, we’re so sorry,” Hatch said.

It’s an experience she hopes no one will ever have to go through.

“I felt like I wanted to collapse, I got a headache immediately, and I took two Tylenol. It didn’t go away until I woke up this morning,” she said.

Police have offered to pay for the damages, but so far the offer has been denied.

Copyright 2023 KPLC. All rights reserved.