\n\tAlberta RCMP are investigating the actions of a man after a series of events that led to police raiding two homes where no crimes were being committed.<\/p>\n
\n\tMounties say the man’s family called police on Nov. 2 after they received text messages from him saying he had been abducted and was being held at gunpoint and knifepoint.<\/p>\n
\n\tOfficers say they traced the man’s whereabouts to two North Edmonton homes where they believed he had been earlier that day. Heavily-armed tactical teams from the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) then raided both homes.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe man was later found safe at a different location, and RCMP determined there had been no abduction.<\/p>\n
\n\tJames Potts, whose home was one of the two raided by police, told CTV News Edmonton that his parents and his kids, who he lives with, are traumatized.<\/p>\n
\n\tHome surveillance video obtained by CTV National News shows police raiding the home of the Potts family.<\/p>\n
\n\tTimestamps on the video indicate police arrived just before 5:20 p.m., simultaneously entering the home through the backyard and approaching the front door with a vehicle-mounted battering ram.<\/p>\n
\n\tIn the backyard, video shows EPS officers with their guns drawn, directing the Potts family\u2014a group of children, teenagers and their grandmother\u2014to get down on the ground. At one point, an officer can be seen tearing off a teenaged boy’s t-shirt before telling him to lie down on his stomach on the pavement.<\/p>\n
\n\t“Why are we getting arrested?,” a girl can be heard asking in the video. One officer responds: “Arms out to your side.”<\/p>\n
\n\tThe same girl asks officers “We’re not going to be shot, right?”<\/p>\n
\n\t“No, you won’t,” responds an officer.<\/p>\n
\n\tPotts was also briefly taken into custody during the raid.<\/p>\n
\n\t“I just cannot believe how this tactical team treated my family and these kids. It’s unbelievable. It’s like something you would see out of a movie,” Potts said.<\/p>\n
\n\tAlberta RCMP Cpl. Troy Savinkoff told CTV National News \u201cWe definitely regret what happened.”<\/p>\n
\n\tPolice say the teams that entered the homes were doing their best to protect the safety of everyone involved.<\/p>\n
\n\t“A kidnapping situation where a gun’s potentially being held to somebody is a very dynamic situation,” said Cpl. Savinkoff.<\/p>\n
\n\t“Those officers were going into that residence with the best intentions, thinking they were saving somebody’s life.”<\/p>\n
\n\tPolice say they’re now conducting a “public mischief” investigation\u2014looking into the actions of the man who allegedly told family members he had been kidnapped, as well as others.\u00a0<\/p>\n