A Florida police SWAT team is being investigated by internal affairs after a one-year-old boy was allegedly injured during a raid on his father’s home and they tried to cover it up.
The young boy was allegedly in the back of a police car at the conclusion of the raid when a police officer opened the door without realising that the tot was leaning against it. The one-year-old then allegedly fell face first onto the pavement and sustained serious injuries.
The incident took place in the city of Pensacola, which is located in the south-eastern US state of Florida, after the Pensacola Police Department (PPD) SWAT team raided the father’s home on Thursday, 3rd February, at approximately 5 AM.
The one-year-old boy and his three-year-old sibling, named as Caion and Cylen, were asleep at their father’s house when this took place.
The dad, who has been named as Corey Marionneaux, 23, was also reportedly not even a suspect in the police investigation that led to the raid but he now faces a charge of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and has lost his job. It currently remains unclear what prompted the police to raid the home.
The child’s 24-year-old mother, who has been named as Moiya Dixon, has now said that she has since hired lawyers in California to file a lawsuit against the city of Pensacola. She has also accused the Pensacola Police Department of attempting to cover up the incident.
The Cochran Firm, which is based in the Californian city of Los Angeles, said in a statement obtained by Newsflash that Corey Marionneux has been “charged with attempted murder after police rammed his door unannounced at dawn.”
They have called for the “stand your ground” law to apply “to the black father who defended his children”.
According to Chapter 776 of the 2021 Florida statutes, available on the official website for the Florida Legislature (http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0776/Sections/0776.013.html), “a person who is in a dwelling or residents in which the person has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and use of threatened to use:
“(a) Nondeadly force against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to defend himself or herself or another against the other’s imminent use of unlawful force; or
“(b) Deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that using or threatening to use such force is necessary to prevent imminent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony.”
The law firm has also called for the officers involved to be charged.
The police report, meanwhile, alleges that the dad fired several shots at the entrance door, believing that intruders had entered his home.
Olivia Iverson, who is an investigative reporter for WEAR-TV, Channel 3 News, who broke the story, has claimed on Twitter: “I was scheduled to interview Chief Eric Randall Friday. But after I brought PPD the mother’s concerns they backed out of the interview, launched an internal affairs investigation, and Randall met the mom in person and apologized.”
She added: “Meanwhile, the father still faces a charge for attempted murder of a law enforcement officer and lost his job over it.
“None of them know why police want information from them for an investigation they say Corey Marioneaux isn’t a suspect for.”
Dixon, who co-parents the children with Marionneux but does not live in the same house, told WEAR TV that she received a phone call at 5 AM that day, adding: “I get out my car like, ‘Where’s my baby? Where’s my baby?'”
She added: “And I get my baby and I see his face — and it’s almost unrecognizable compared to how he looked when I left him last.”
The internal affairs investigation is ongoing. There has been no recent information on the injured child’s current condition.
