Family Rousted Out of Home by Police in Mistaken Raid

SYCAMORE, IL — A family was frightened by police and rousted out of their beds last week as officers pursuing a murder suspect mistakenly descended on a home in Sycamore, surrounding the house with guns and dogs.

In the dark of night early Friday, just hours after a 25-year-old DeKalb man had been shot to death, State Police, DeKalb County sheriff's deputies and Sycamore police officers surrounded the home of Eric Nabors — where he lives with his wife and three children.

The children told ABC 7 Chicago's Chuck Goudie the police shone their flashlights through their bedroom windows, flashing them on and off. The children, a girl and boy ages 13 and 10, emerged from the house with their hands in the air as police dogs barked.

So did their dad.

"I stepped out and I took not even three steps out the door, and I see a whole bunch of people running saying, 'He's got a gun,'" Eric Nabors told ABC. "I didn't have nothing on me, nothing in my hand, I don't own a gun. After they searched me, then they told me what they were looking for. 'We're looking for a black male suspect with dreads for a possible homicide in DeKalb.'

"They didn't believe me until they finally ran my name."

Police made a mistake. A video of the episode was posted to YouTube by Ryan Scott.

Police had tracked two men, one of whom had dreadlocks, to Sycamore, a small town north of DeKalb and west of Elgin. The men had fled from police when officers arrived at the crime scene late Thursday night, reports the DeKalb Daily Chronicle.

The next day, police arrested two Chicago-area men for the killing: David T. Walls, 18, of Chicago, and Niko L. Griggs, 27, of south suburban Park Forest. Both are charged with first-degree murder and weapons offenses. They are accused of shooting 25-year-old Debrece G. Shields outside an apartment near the Northern Illinois University campus in what police are describing as a "targeted" killing.

Their car had broken down in Sycamore.

"I feel like it could have been better done," said Deana Brown, Nabors' wife. "They could have had better intel, they could have had a better description before they put my family through all of this."

The family is considering whether to file a lawsuit.

image via YouTube screen capture