US Marshals searching for a murder suspect in Florida knocked on the wrong door — and forced a mother holding her child out at gunpoint, intense video shows.
Kada Staples, 22, said she was napping Friday at her Bradenton apartment with her 3-month-old child when armed US Marshals knocked at her door and ordered her to come out, saying “we know he’s in there,” WFLA reported.
Footage from Staples’ doorbell cam shows two agents with guns drawn just outside her unit.
“And they started screaming at me, ‘US Marshals, open up, we know he’s in there,’ yelling to come out,” Staples recalled. “And I just kind of started freaking out, so I’m trying to hurry up and put my dog away in his cage.”
Moments later, Staples cracked open her door and the US Marshals pushed her and her baby out of the way while holding them at gunpoint, she said.
“There’s a gun about a foot away from her face,” the frightened mom said of her child.
The footage shows Staples in tears outside her apartment as the US Marshals realize they made a mistake.
“And then all run out, and they’re like, ‘that’s the wrong apartment, wrong apartment,’” Staples told WFLA.
Aside from her dog and child, no one else was inside Staples’ apartment.
The man being sought by the US Marshals was Shamar Johnson, who was wanted for a homicide in September in Manatee County, NBC News reported. He was taken into custody at another apartment on the same floor as Staples moments later, the federal law enforcement agency said in a statement Tuesday.
Staples’ residence was a “target of the investigation” and marshals “did not make entry,” according to the statement, which did not include an apology for the mix-up, NBC News reported.
“No sorry, no nothing,” Staples told WFLA. “They tell me, ‘You’re good,’ and another one said, ‘You’re fine.'”
Had Staples not made contact with the agents through her Ring doorbell device, the Marshals “would not have had any contact with anyone” in her unit. The footage, however, shows the armed men ordering her to come outside with her hands raised.
“They did come back an hour later and said, ‘We just want to explain to you that we saw a black male run upstairs and we thought he came to your apartment, but he didn’t go to your apartment and it turns out it wasn’t the black man we were looking [for],’” Staples told WFTS.
The new mom, meanwhile, said she’s been having trouble sleeping since the frightening encounter.
“I think it happens more than people know and it can happen to absolutely anybody,” Staples said.
