Crime & Public Safety
Deputies raid wrong home in search for suspected car thief
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An Orange County Sheriff's Office manhunt for a suspected car thief Saturday ended with deputies raiding the wrong home as a frightened family was inside.
Deputies thought a man barricaded himself in an Oak Ridge apartment Saturday morning after fleeing a traffic stop.
The man, who wasn’t publicly identified, was stopped by a deputy shortly before 6:30 a.m. at Rose Boulevard and South Texas Avenue in a vehicle stolen from Miami, said Capt. Angelo Nieves.
As the deputy tried to open the vehicle’s door to remove the driver, the man fled, Nieves said.
Deputies received information that the suspect fled half a mile north to the Citrus Glen apartments at Americana Boulevard and South Texas Avenue, Nieves said.
Deputies ordered who they thought was their suspect to surrender from an apartment on Limelight Circle.
A woman who has lived in the apartment for several years said deputies mistakenly showed up to her home with guns drawn in search of the suspect.
The frightened woman, who asked to not be identified, didn’t allow the deputies into her home when they knocked because they had their guns drawn, she said.
"I had my kids in here and they had they're guns out,” she said. “That was really terrifying.”
The tenant said the deputies returned with a search warrant, broke through the ceiling and stormed the apartment in search of a suspect named Adam.
“I have my son here and he has dreads,” she said. “They probably would have thought it was Adam. I was really terrified.”
The woman said it wasn't the first time Orange County deputies raided her apartment in search of the suspect.
The Sheriff’s Office said it received inaccurate information that led them to the wrong apartment.
The suspect remains at large.
