SWAT finds senior citizen instead of suspect
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Evansville Police are searching for the person responsible for online posts, threatening officers and their families.
Thursday, EPD performed a SWAT raid at 616 east Powell Avenue, only to find out, the people inside the home aren't to blame.
An 18-year-old girl and her mother live in the home, you can imagine their shock during that raid, which broke windows and a storm door.
But EPD says, given the serious nature of the threat, the raid was well worth it to keep everyone safe.
"I was sitting on the couch, watching the Food Network and on Facebook or whatever and I heard this big crash and the windows busted," said Stephanie Milan.
Thursday was not a typical day for Milan and her mother, who were inside their Powell Avenue home when the SWAT team's two flash bangs broke their windows and storm door.
"It was really a shock. I'm like, I think they have the wrong house," Milan said.
EPD says callers alerted them to posts on topix.com. They say police officers are often the brunt of verbal attacks, but these threats were different.
"One of them specifically said that on July 4th, that an officer's home was going to be shot up, made reference to killing our children and our spouses," said EPD PIO Sgt. Jason Cullum.
Cullum tells us Milan and her mother aren't to blame, but the threats did come from their IP address.
"Because there were multiple posts from their IP address, we believe that it's somebody that's close that would be near there on more than one occasion on the same evening."
"They told us that someone's using our router that wasn't protected to threaten the cops and it wasn't us," said Milan.
Cullum says due to the severity of the threats, if police had the situation to do over, they wouldn't change a thing.
"I hope they catch the people who did it because what they did was really wrong," Milan said.
"This is direct threats of killing people, of blowing things up, and that's not freedom of speech," Cullum noted.
Police say the situation shows how important it is to protect your wireless Internet connection with a password.
EPD says they are still reviewing the electronics collected from the home. They are still searching for the suspect.
We'll keep you posted on their investigation.
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