Suspect's family wants LAPD to repair home after battering ram used during search

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A burglary suspect's family is asking the LAPD to repair their South Los Angeles home after officers used a battering ram while serving a search warrant on their grandson on Aug. 22.

Warren Johnson and his wife are also asking for an apology after their home on Halldale Avenue, near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, was raided.

The department acknowledges that the Johnson's doors were damaged during the search, but the LAPD says one of the Johnson's grandsons, Deshawn Johnson, 18, is a documented gang member and was wanted for burglary.

Warren Johnson said he and his wife were in Florida, but that Deshawn Johnson and his twin were home at the time.

Police say they were searching for a stolen laptop, speakers and a cell phone they believed Deshawn Johnson had stolen from a home in West Los Angeles on Ashby Avenue. His blood was allegedly found on a broken window, the LAPD said.

"They just tore up the closets, tore up the bedroom though, tore up the frame of the house, for no reason whatsoever, kicked over the door, kicked the TV's over," Johnson said. "For what reason? Looking for a computer?"

The Johnson's bedroom doors, closet doors and the front door were also damaged during their search. Their home security camera shows police entering the living room with guns drawn and then turning one camera in the hallway up at the ceiling.

"We did angle the cameras upward because, as I said, we didn't know where these cameras were being fed into," Los Angeles police Capt. Evangelyn Nathan said. "We didn't know whether it was into one of the rooms, whether there were other gang members with guns, we didn't know, so for officers' safety purposes, we did angle the camera up."

When officers went to serve the search warrant, they say they knocked on the door and called into the house. When no one answered, they used a hand-held ram to break down the front door. Officers say they broke the other doors because they were locked.

"You lock your bedroom door because you've got your clothes, your jewelry that you don't take on vacation with you in the bedroom," Johnson said.

Police say officers followed department policy. They told the family an officer would come back with a claim form to fill out in order to pay for the damages.

The Johnson's attorney, Nana Gyamfi, says officers returned four days later with the form and she advised them not to sign. She says her clients were treated unfairly because of where they live.

"How do you act when you go into the house of 80-something-year-old people when you are going to get a person and three inanimate objects out of a house on Halldale versus how you do that in West L.A.," Gyamfi said.

The LAPD says the officers were doing their job.

"This has nothing to do with where you live, whether you're on the Westside, the Eastside, the Southside," Nathan said. "It had absolutely nothing to do with race."

Police say they recovered the cell phone that was stolen from the West L.A. burglary. Deshawn Johnson was arrested for one count of felony burglary as well as a gang enhancement charge.

Meantime, the Johnson's can still fill out the LAPD's claim form. Gyamfi tells Eyewitness News they have not yet decided whether they plan to fill a lawsuit.