More News

Montgomery County paid $30,000 to a Gaithersburg family who, with the American Civil Liberties Union, filed a lawsuit against the county and county police after a special operations team mistakenly entered and searched the family's apartment in 2005.

The lawsuit was filed in 2008 in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt and was settled in recent weeks, said Fritz Mulhauser, staff attorney for the ACLU of the Nation's Capital. The lawsuit states that the police violated the Njoroge family's constitutional right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure.

"We believe this is a just and fair settlement. Whenever we have a situation like this, we do what we can to make things right," said Montgomery County Attorney Leon Rodriguez.

The police had a warrant to search apartment 201 at 8 Summit Drive in Gaithersburg, but at 4 a.m. Oct. 6, 2005, police SWAT team entered apartment 202.

Nancy Njoroge and her two daughters, Janet, then 16, and Joyce, then 13, were sleeping when police used a battering ram to enter their home, according to the lawsuit. Njoroge and her daughters were bound with plastic handcuffs for 30 minutes until police freed them and apologized for their mistake. Njoroge's husband, William, and their son were not home.

No one was injured, said county police spokeswoman Lucille Baur.

"The Montgomery County SWAT team has successfully executed several thousand warrants. This was an isolated incident," she said.

The police had a search warrant for drugs and found a large amount of cocaine and money in the intended apartment, 201, Baur said.

The complaint states that Nancy and Joyce Njoroge "feel unsafe in their own home," and distrust police. The Njoroges could not be reached for comment.

The family will not seek further legal action, Mulhauser said.