Grieving mother traumatized after Philly cops raid her house with a warrant for her deceased son
A grieving mother was left traumatized after Philadelphia police raided her home with an arrest warrant for her late son who had been killed five months earlier.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that roughly a dozen police last month entered the home of Tysha Melton with their weapons drawn and demanded to know the whereabouts of her son, Travys Taylor.
The officers said they had a warrant for his arrest after he failed to show up to court on drug and trespassing charges.
Melton directed them to his bedroom upstairs, where she had made a memorial to him after he was fatally shot by a masked gunman last year while walking out from a takeout restaurant.
Melton tells the Inquirer that the officers quickly filed out of her home after seeing the memorial, and some even covered up their badges so she could not identify them.
Melton also says she's particularly upset about the incident because no arrests have yet been made related to her son's murder.
"How are you looking for my son’s murderer if you’re looking for him at the same time?” she asked. “That’s what I need to know. Not only did y’all violate me emotionally, you took all hope that I had in the last six months that somebody was at least out there looking for the murderer. Y’all showed me y’all ain’t looking for no dammed body except my son.”
Teresa Lundy, a spokesperson for Sheriff Rochelle Bilal, defended the department's actions and told the Inquirer that there "was no mechanism for checking in advance of a raid to see whether someone wanted on an outstanding warrant had died."
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