A South Side mother of three is suing the city and the Chicago Police Department, claiming officers raided her apartment — the wrong apartment — three times in a four-month span.
“There was no time to breathe in between,” said Krystal Archie, 38, who lives in the 6800 block of South Dorchester Ave. “I’d get my house together, and they were back in my house.”
Archie, whose children range in age from 7 to 14, spoke to reporters Friday at the office of her downtown attorney, Al Hofeld Jr.
“There is a silent epidemic of trauma being perpetrated upon the children and families of the South and West sides of our city by Chicago police barreling into the wrong homes, holding guns on children, handcuffing children ... ,” Hofeld said.
Hofeld has filed half a dozen lawsuits in recent months, claiming in each that children have been traumatized by gun-wielding cops bursting into homes during raids.
Each time police came to Archie’s home — between February and May — they came in search of illegal drugs and someone who doesn’t live in her apartment, according to the suit, filed in U.S. District Court.
A spokesman for the city’s Law Department said Friday said he he had not seen the lawsuit and so could not comment.
Archie said it has cost her hundreds of dollars every time she’s had to clean up after the police have come through.
She says she expects them to come again.
“We have to now look over our shoulders, and who we look for to protect us ... we can’t see them in that light any more,” she said.
