MSP sued by Flint family after they say troopers raided the wrong house

(Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include a statement from the Michigan State Police.)

FLINT, MI – In April 2021, troopers with the Michigan State Police allegedly burst into a Flint home without knocking or announcing themselves.

With their guns drawn, they allegedly pulled a family member from a shower, entered the bedrooms of children and forced the family to sit in their living room without explaining why they were in their home.

After an hour, police realized their mistake; the home they were in was not connected to the murder they were investigating. Instead, it was only home to a woman, her daughter, and her three grandchildren.

That is what is being alleged by the attorneys representing that family in a pair of lawsuits filed in Genesee County Circuit Court and the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan on Monday, May 16.

“Nobody in our community deserves to have their door batted in at 10:30 at night, and held at gunpoint by people that we pay to protect us,” said the Rev. Aaron Dunigan, the brother of Michelle Colston, who lived at the Garland Street where the raid took place more than a year ago. “I think I’ve said this plenty of times, that I wouldn’t want to live in a world without some type of police system. But also, I wouldn’t want to live in a world where the police can just come in and do what they want when they want without any recourse.”

The two lawsuits were filed on behalf of Renee Dunigan, Colston, and her three children, who were 14, 10 and 3 years old at the time of the raid, by civil rights attorneys Teresa Bingman, Julie Hurwitz and Bill Goodman.

The attorneys introduced the lawsuits Monday, May 16, at a news conference held at Joy Tabernacle Church on Flint’s north side.

Both of the lawsuits seek an unspecified amount of compensation more than $25,000 “for the physical, emotional, and economic injuries suffered by Plaintiffs by reason of Defendants’ unlawful and unjustified conduct, in an amount fair, just and reasonable and in conformity with the evidence at trial.”

The Genesee County lawsuit names the State of Michigan and Michigan State Police as defendants in addition to 16 named officers with the department and some unnamed officers. The federal lawsuit includes the officers.

The state lawsuit claims a violation of Michigan’s Elliot-Larsen Civil Rights Act, which prohibits police officers from practices that racially discriminate against and/or have a disproportionate and negative impact on people who are minorities. The federal claim submits that the family’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights were violated.

“We have small children in this family who, before this happened, respected the police. They were told to respect the police,” said Julie H. Hurwitz, one of the attorneys representing the family. “Now, when they see the police, they ask their mom and their grandmother and their uncle, ‘Oh, are these men going to kill us?’ That is how they experience the police now as a result of what happened to them.”

In a Monday statement, MSP confirmed it executed a search warrant at the home in relation to a homicide investigation. But what prompted the search warrant was, in part, false information provided by a confidential informant.

“Many of the allegations being made in the lawsuit are not accurate, nor are they reflective of the policies and procedures of the MSP relating to the execution of search warrants,” the statement reads. “We are prepared to defend against these allegations in court. The MSP is currently deploying body worn cameras to every member at the rank of detective sergeant and below. The cameras have been deployed in the Fifth and Sixth districts already. They are being deployed in the Third District currently, which includes the Flint Post.”

The raid

Sometime between 9-10 p.m. on Wednesday, April 21, 2021, the Dunigan and Colston families were inside their Garland Street home in a predominantly Black neighborhood butting up on the northside of Flint.

The family, who had lived in the home for 10 years as of that night, was preparing for bed. The children – age 10 and 14 at the time – were preparing for school the next morning. The 3-year-old boy was already asleep.

Colston was in the shower; her mother, Dunigan, was in the living room, sitting near the front door to the house.

Then the door broke open. Without a knock or announcement at the door, at least 15-20 fully armed MSP SWAT Team members, using a battering ram, smashed in the front door to the home and rushed inside, Hurwitz said. There was yelling. Guns were being pointed at the occupants inside the home, their possessions ransacked as they were herded into the middle of their living room.

The 3-year-old boy was awoken from his sleep with a gun pointed at him. The 10-year-old was ordered to come down the stairs, also with a gun aimed at them, Hurwitz said. Colston, who had just gotten out of the shower, was barely allowed to put on a robe before being ordered downstairs.

No footage of the raid exists, the attorneys said, because the MSP troopers partaking in it did not have body cameras.

After an hour, the investigators on the scene realized they were at a home that was not connected to their murder investigation.

“So, they just left,” Hurwitz said. “As quickly as they barged in, they all, when they realized they were in the wrong house, they just left. No apologies. No further explanation. Nothing. And by then, the damage was done.

The lawsuit claims that a search warrant was authorized after a silver Nissan Altima matching the description of one connected with a Flint homicide reported a day prior was seen in a shared driveway between the plaintiffs’ home and a neighboring house.

“The owner of the Nissan was the girlfriend of one of the murder suspects, and that her boyfriend had been identified, via video footage, as having been in the Nissan at the time and location of the murder,” the affidavit for a search warrant at the plaintiffs’ home reads, according to the complaint.

According to the lawsuit, a search warrant was authorized for the plaintiffs’ home after a “shoddy and sloppy investigation.”

The aftermath

The Michigan State Police paid to have the door destroyed during the raid on the Colston/Dunigan home repaired, the family’s attorneys said. They also offered $5,000 to “make them whole,” before the family hired attorneys.

Attorneys representing the family sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice in June 2021 calling for the department to investigate police practices in the city. The family is also calling for the Michigan Legislature to ban no-knock warrants.

The attorneys on Monday said they have received no response, let alone the investigation they seek.

That’s why the attorneys penned another letter – this time to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, hoping it will get the attention they feel it deserves. They have urged the governor to support a series of police improvement and accountability bills.

“Thus, we are calling on you, Governor Whitmer, to support the efforts of the Dunigan/Colston family to overcome this tragic event and lead our state through police reform by supporting crucial bills pending in the legislature, including SB 479, sponsored by Senator Erika Geiss, and by calling for an independent civil rights investigation of Michigan State Police,” the letter says in part.

Senate Bills 473-484 were introduced by Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich, D-Flint, Sen. Stephanie Chang, D-Detroit, and Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Taylor, to address issues that have arisen from interactions between police and residents in which no-knock warrants and/or excessive force was used, according to a May 16 news release from three Democratic Michigan Senators sponsoring the bills.

“It is clear that fundamental changes in our approach to public policy and policing are needed, and we are committed to seeing these bills passed and sent on to the governor’s desk to be signed into law,” the senators said in a joint news release.

Read more at The Flint Journal:

Flint family calls for Justice Department investigation after MSP house raid

Flint man to spend rest of his life in prison for 2019 triple homicide

One person in custody after fatal shooting in Flint