FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): Two weeks ago, Fort Wayne police surrounded a man who was in his car, in his driveway, threw flash-bang grenades at him, and ordered him out of the car at gunpoint.
The problem is they had the wrong guy.
“We could have died. That’s all I can think about. We could have died,” Bronce Thomas tells our Partners in News at ABC 21.
He had been in the car for a half hour because his 4-year-old son, who was also in the car, was asleep and he didn’t want to wake him. But police thought he was a murder suspect they had chased into the neighborhood.
“I see all these automatic guns pointed at me and my son at the car and everybody yelling get out, get down, we’ll shoot if you — I’m just hearing all kinds of stuff…. I put my hands up. I wanted to look back at my son. But I knew if I would have looked back at him, they probably would have shot us,” Thomas says.
Thomas has filed a formal complaint with the FWPD Internal Affairs department. He and his son are undergoing treatment for anxiety related to the incident. Police told ABC 21 an investigation is ongoing.
A peaceful protest over the situation is being organized for Saturday from 2pm to 4pm on the Courthouse Green in downtown Fort Wayne.
