A man was arrested and held at gunpoint in his new home after neighbors reported him to the police as he was moving in.
23-year-old Keonte Furdge was moving into the new home that he shares with his friend, Toren Young, when police officers entered the house and ordered him to put his hands up.
During the June 2 incident, officers Jared Wedig and Luke Wunsch were responding to a report of a ‘suspicious’ man sitting on the porch of a Monona home.
As seen in the bodycam footage, the officers pointed their guns at Furdge before handcuffing him and explaining that a neighbor reported ‘suspicious’ behavior to the police.
After explaining that he was moving into his new home and had the permission of the former owner’s family to do so, Furdge was released and the officers apologized for the “misunderstanding.”
According to the reports, Furdge and Young, who wasn’t present at the time of the arrest, were moving into the home of their former football coach’s mother who passed away.
After Furdge arrived at the Monona home, a female neighbor called the police to report the “African-American with sweatpants.”
“My neighbor… passed away, the house is empty, and now there is an African-American with sweatpants… and a white shirt sitting on the front door,” the neighbor said.
After the two officers arrived at the scene, they allegedly announced their presence but their knocks went unanswered. They then made their way into the home with guns drawn after hearing voices of whom they believed to be potential burglars.
Following the incident, Furdge has filed a lawsuit in which he named the two officers who arrested him and the city of Monona.
“This lawsuit seeks to establish that this was more than a misunderstanding. It seeks to vindicate the violation of Keonte Furdge’s constitutional rights,” the complaint reads.
As the 23-year-old admitted in an interview with Madison365.com after the incident, he “was definitely afraid” for his life during the arrest.
“They was like: ‘Are you allowed to be here?’ I was like: ‘Yes, my coach is allowing me and another friend to stay here.’ And he was like: ‘Well, we got a suspicious call saying that people was on the property, and the lady that lived here was deceased,’” the football player said.
“I was like: ‘Well, my coach knows that me and my friend are staying here.’ And my hands are still up. The guns are still pointing at me for some reason. They still… They didn’t put the guns down.”
After the officers confirmed Furdge’s claims with a call to the deceased owner’s family, they apologized for the “misunderstanding” and vowed to inform neighbors that Furdge and Young are allowed to stay at the home so that “this cr** doesn’t happen again.”
In the lawsuit, Furdge is reportedly seeking compensation for mental distress, pain, bodily injury, humiliation, and loss of liberty associated with the incident.
Among other counts, the suit accuses the police of false arrest and detention, unlawful entry, and the use of excessive force.
“It seeks to effect change through punitive damages by punishing the Defendants for their egregious conduct with the hope that the punishment is significant enough to prevent this from happening again in the future, so that a person can move into a formerly vacant house in the City of Monona and sit on his front porch without having to fear that the police will break in and shoot him,” the complaint reads.
Replaced!