SOUTH FULTON, Ga. — A family is demanding someone inside the South Fulton Police Department be held accountable for a terrifying police encounter on the doorsteps of their own home.
The family asked not to be identified but reached out to 11Alive for help. On Friday night, they provided home surveillance footage to us. The video shows multiple South Fulton Police officers pulling up outside their home around 7 a.m. Thursday morning on High Tide Drive.
At the time, only the four children -- ages 13, 11, 4 and 2 -- and their mom were home.
“We were up, getting everybody ready for school,” the woman explained, adding, “There’s a lot of commotion in the morning trying to get everybody ready.”
She said her 11-year-old son was the one who noticed all the commotion outside.
“He walked past the window to come towards my room and was like mom the police are outside,” she explained.
That’s when the woman checked for herself and noticed the officers in her driveway and along the street.
“There is a police car blocking my truck and an officer standing outside,” she said, recalling the moments the chaos unfolded as the sun was coming up Thursday.
The woman said that, at this point, she decided to walk downstairs to find out why the officers were outside her home and to see what was going on in the neighborhood.
“I open the door, and there are like three or four assault rifles pointed at my face at seven o’clock in the morning,” she explained.
At this point, she recalled an officer yelling at her, “Where’s James? Where’s Mr. James?”
She said she had no idea what the officer was talking about,
She responded: “I don’t know. This is not the James residence.”
The woman said he then asked her what her address was and after she told him the tone changed.
“He looks at the officers that are pointing at me from my driveway and he shakes his head and they just walk off,” she explained.
She said that none of the officers apologized or admitted to her they had the wrong address. She said they all just got in their vehicles and pulled off.
“It was a traumatizing experience, just the way he was yelling at me so aggressively and me just thinking they’re going to kill me," she explained. "They’re not listening to me because you already had it made up in your mind, 'James is in this house.”'
Mr. James was not in the house, but she said what made it so much worse was the fact that her children were inside and heard all of it happen.
The woman said her 11-year-old son typically starts their truck on a cold morning to get it warm before they head off for school. She said she was just glad on Thursday morning; he wasn’t the first one downstairs.
“What if he had already been downstairs, grabbed the keys and went out the door? You know, is he James now?” she asked.
11Alive reached out to South Fulton Police for a statement on how this happened and if an investigation is underway to see how it happened. On Friday evening, South Fulton Police said they would be in touch "shortly."
As of Saturday morning, a statement from police was released stating:
On Thursday, February 29, 2024, South Fulton Police officers responded to a residence on High Tide Drive to serve an arrest warrant. The incident is now under review to ensure all procedures were followed correctly.
We appreciate the community's understanding as we conduct a thorough internal investigation. Updates will be provided as available.