NEW HAVEN, Conn. (WTNH) — New Haven police released body camera footage on Monday of a botched raid from earlier this month where officers broke down a woman’s door, guns drawn, to make an arrest — but had the wrong apartment.

Police released about 20 minutes worth of video from the raid, from multiple officers’ cameras.

One video depicts officers arriving at the apartment and knocking on the door.

Another shows a lieutenant’s video of the scene, where the woman talks with police about the suspect. In the video, police said that it was “not OK for us to be banging on your door at 5 o’clock in the morning. The lieutenant apologizes, and said that “it must have been terrifying” for her.

Her face has been blacked out throughout the footage.

The third is from a detective’s body camera. The video depicts the woman being handcuffed as police said they had a search warrant. She mentions that her son is sleeping and asks if he’s awake.

The woman filed a lawsuit on Sunday against New Haven police and city officials, claiming that she was injured, suffered emotional distress and incurred costs following the raid.

Officers kicked down Stacey Wezenter’s door at about 6 a.m. on April 6, looking for the wrong man, according to the lawsuit. They handcuffed her and asked if a man was in an apartment, and then didn’t answer questions about why she was being arrested. Wezenter’s two children were inside at the time.

“During their search, the raid team located children’s toys and realized and acknowledged that they were in the wrong apartment,” the lawsuit reads.

Police have said the raid was part of a child pornography investigation into 35-year-old Tim Yergeau, who lives a floor beneath Wezenter. He died by suicide four days later.

On Monday, New Haven Police Chief Karl Jacobson said he opened an internal affairs investigation into the incident. He said he plans to release body camera footage and a redacted police report.

Jacobson has said the police acted quickly to enter the home because they thought Yergeau could destroy evidence when they arrived.

Wezenter’s lawsuit claims that the search warrant was “constitutionally deficient in that it did not particularly describe the place to be searched.”

The lawsuit requests a jury trial. It does not specify what she is seeking in damages.

A spokesperson for the City of New Haven said that it hasn’t been served with the lawsuit yet.

“It’s unfortunate that the wrong apartment was initially entered when executing this search warrant,” Elicker said in a written statement. “Both Chief Jacobson and I have extended our apologies to Ms. Wezenter, we want to be helpful to her and her family in whatever ways we can, and an internal affairs investigation is underway to help prevent an incident like this from happening again.”

The statement continues on to state that within minutes of realizing they were in the wrong place, police then executed the search warrant on the right apartment and seized “significant amounts of evidence.”

“Any criminal activity involving child pornography and young minors that may be at-risk are situations that we want our law enforcement officers to act on as expeditiously as possible to prevent any additional harm,” the statement reads.

The video below aired in our 6 p.m. newscast on April 17, 2023.