Over a three-day period in June 2007, heavily armed SWAT teams, supported by tanks and helicopters, descended on Detroit's Eight Mile Road. The massive operation involved police and agents from 21 different local, state and federal branches of law enforcement, and was intended to rid the notoriously crime-ridden area of drug houses, prostitutes and wanted fugitives.
After conducting hundreds of raids, the authorities made 122 arrests, according to The Detroit News, and seized about 50 ounces of marijuana, 6.5 ounces of cocaine and 19 guns.
When Caroline Burley, now 51, first heard the boom around 5:30 on the evening of June 13, it sounded like it had come from outside her bedroom window. She rushed to investigate, and as she came out of the room, a man with a gun confronted her, threw her into a wall and then hurled her to the floor. A SWAT team had burst through her front door. Wearing only her nightgown, she asked for mercy. She recently had back surgery, she explained. Instead, one officer, then another kept her close to the floor by putting a boot in her back, according to court filings.
Caroline's mother, Geraldine Burley, was sitting at her computer in the basement when she heard a loud thud overhead, followed by a scream from her daughter and a man's voice ordering Caroline Burley to the floor. When she ascended the stairs, she too found a gun pointed at her head, and a man ordered her to get on the floor as well. She thought at first that she was being robbed.