Lawsuit filed against Chicago after family claims they were terrorized by police

CHICAGO (Fox 32 News) - A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed against the city of Chicago by a family that says police conducted a raid during a child's birthday party on the wrong house.

In the lawsuit, the family alleges police stormed their Auburn-Gresham home on Feb. 10, with a search warrant.  But the lawsuit says the warrant was for an individual who moved out 5 years earlier and was unrelated to the family. 

"They tossed and destroyed all of the rooms," said the family's attorney Al Hofeld, Jr., "and took a door off the hinges and pried open wall panels with a crowbar."

The attorney's firm is representing three other families in filing civil rights lawsuits against the city alleging the same conduct by Chicago police.

At the time of the raid, family members were celebrating the fourth birthday of Terrance Jackson (TJ), Jr.

In a statement the attorney described the incident saying, "During the raid, officers repeatedly pointed and held guns directly and at close range at TJ and his 7-year-old sister, Samari, as well as at their family and friends in front of the children... officers smashed TJ’s birthday cake, poured peroxide on his presents, trashed the basement unit, screamed profanity and insults at the families, unlawfully questioned the children in a separate room without the consent of their parents, and joked and laughed throughout the raid. No one was arrested or charged. None of the contraband items listed in the warrant were found."

The children's mother spoke to reporters in a press conference Tuesday.

"To worry about her or her brother getting shot, by someone that's supposed to protect and serve them, it's terrifying, it's horrible, the worst experience that I never wish my kids experienced," mother Stephanie Bures said.