BAYTOWN, Texas (KTRK) — A Baytown family says they’re tired of people reporting false emergencies at their home but even more fed up with the police response.
Surveillance video shows three heavily armed Baytown police officers at Ryan and Amelia Mengo’s front door the night of Oct. 15.
One of them tries repeatedly to kick the door in while Ryan and the Mengos’ three children were sleeping.
“I really thought that someone was coming to break into our home. I yelled my husband’s name,” said Amelia Mengo.
While Amelia ran upstairs to get a gun, Ryan Mengo said he ran downstairs to confront the intruders.
“I scream, ‘Who is it?’ and they start saying, ‘Come out with your hands up. It’s the police,'” he said.
Ryan was ordered to crawl outside on his stomach. His surveillance camera captured him trying to explain things to officers.
“If this is about the swatting event, this has happened to my house before,” he said.
In July, he said a pizza delivery driver called police to report a hostage was being held at the Mengo’s home.
“Whoever ordered the pizza via online had wrote in the delivery messages, ‘I’m being held hostage,'” Ryan Mengo said.
Police confirmed the Mengos were victims of another false report on Oct. 15, what law enforcement calls swatting.
They said they were told a man had shot his wife in the stomach and then barricaded himself with his son inside the Mengos’ house.
Police wrote in a news release that “the handcuffs were immediately removed” upon learning that none of what was reported to them was true.
“It felt like a bunch of cowboys that want to play with their guns and act like a bunch of jackbooted thugs. They terrorized my wife, they terrorized my house,” Ryan Mengo said.
Eyewitness News asked Mengo if he could understand why police would take a report like the one they’d received seriously.
“To an extent, yes,” he replied. “But a little bit of discretion, a phone call.”
After the first swatting call, the Mengos say a police dispatcher told them their address would be flagged.
Police didn’t respond to that claim when Eyewitness News asked.
“If anything like this happens again, we’ll call y’all first to do a welfare check or to let you know they’re coming,” Ryan Mengo said he was told.
In their news release, police defended their response.
“Officers must make decisions based on the information available to them at the time of the response, particularly when reports indicate that individuals may be seriously injured or in immediate danger,” the statement read.
“I feel like they just went too fast with everything. They got a call, and they reacted instead of taking a little bit more precaution,” said Amelia Mengo.
“Wouldn’t you want them to react quickly if something bad really was happening?” Eyewitness News asked.
“Yes and no,” Mengo replied, adding that “their expedited reaction would have still led to someone being critically injured.”
Police said they’re still investigating to find out who’s behind the swatting calls.
They also warn it isn’t a harmless prank, but a crime that ties up resources and puts lives in danger.
In Texas, making a false emergency call is a Class A misdemeanor that carries up to a year in jail.
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