Prince George's County police SWAT team raids wrong apartment in address mix-up

CAMP SPRINGS, Md. - Prince George's County police SWAT officers raided the wrong apartment early Friday morning after buildings with identical street numbers but on different streets across from each other confused investigators.

The wrong-address raid led officers to break down the door and point their weapons in the direction of Cherise Savoy, whose 1-year-old child and other family members were asleep until officers broke in.

"I saw them coming through and when they were coming through my door, they were just pouring in," said Savoy. "I didn't know whether I was in jeopardy of my life or my kids. I just knew something was happening that should not be happening."

Police say the mix-up stems from the fact that there are two buildings in the Allentown Apartments with the same street and apartment numbers. One building is on Carswell Avenue and the other is on Morris Avenue, separated by a small parking lot between the two.

Prince George's County police owned up to the mistake almost immediately, according to Maj. Anthony Schartner, who leads the criminal investigation division.

"We own this. We take responsibility," he said. "It's our fault. We apologized to the homeowner Friday morning. We apologized to her today as well. I personally responded and spoke to the homeowner and gave my sincere apologies to make sure that we make things right."

After Home Depot opened on Friday, officers bought a new lock for Savoy and put it in.

Savoy says police have confused her apartment before with the one they were supposed to serve a warrant on Friday morning, but they never forced their way in armed.

Police did eventually arrest the couple they were looking for originally -- charging them with a series of armed robberies.

FOX 5 wasn't able to reach a representative of the apartment complex Monday night, but a spokesperson for the Prince George's County government was looking into the address situation to see if anything can be done to prevent the confusion in the future.

The U.S. Postal Service spokesperson said in an email to FOX 5, "The U.S. Postal Service does not assign street names or addresses. Whenever a customer wishes to change a house number to an existing address, they should contact local municipality officials."