By Hector Gutierrez
Rocky Mountain News
AURORA, Colo. — One minute Matthew Tsangarakis was watching television. The next he was lying facedown, long-barreled guns pointed at him.
The weapons belonged to members of the Aurora Police Department’s Direct Action Response Team and Arapahoe County sheriff’s deputies, who had knocked on Tsangarakis’ door and ordered him to the floor.
The lawmen were trying to verify whether a kidnapping was occurring at the home and whether someone was in danger.
“They had their guns drawn and about five of them surrounded me with their flashlights in my eyes,” Tsangarakis said of the Oct. 9 episode.
It turned out that not only was the kidnapping report a hoax but that officers had gone to the wrong house.
Tsangarakis and his lawyer, Thomas J. Helms, have filed a notice of claim for $45,000 from Aurora and Arapahoe County for the agencies’ alleged negligence.
"(Tsangarakis) suffered fright, shock and emotional distress. He continues to suffer from manifestations of this emotional distress,” according to the claim.
The drama unfolded after a teenager called a friend on her cell phone to say she had been kidnapped, said Shannon Lucy, Aurora police spokeswoman. The friend in turn phoned police, providing officers with the teen’s cell phone number.
Dispatchers called T-Mobile but inadvertently gave the wrong number to the cell phone provider. Based on that, T-Mobile directed police to Tsangarakis’ home, Lucy said.
Officers learned on the way to the house that the kidnapping report might be bogus, Lucy said, but wanted to confirm the teen was OK.
At the house, Tsangarakis had just sat down to watch television, when he heard a knock on the door and saw several people holding flashlights.
“They tell me, ‘Aurora police!’ and they tell me to get down, face down and hands out,” he recalled.
Lucy said the officers informed Tsangarakis why they were at his house prior to entering and asked for his permission to search it. Tsangarakis gave his consent, she said.
Tsangarakis said that as the officers pointed their weapons at him, they said, “There’s a kidnaping. We detected it to your house.”
An officer at the scene, meanwhile, was on a cell phone and reading off a phone number that they thought belonged to Tsangarakis. The police were off by one number.
“And (the officer) goes, ‘Oh, there’s the mistake, then. We’re really sorry,’ ” Tsangarakis said.
Officers were able to determine the right cell phone number for the kidnapping report and T-Mobile directed officers to the area where the initial call was made. They found the teen there unharmed, Lucy said.
The girl was arrested for allegedly making a false police report. Police are still investigating the phone number mix-up, Lucy said.
“It was our mistake, nobody else’s,” she said. “It came from the Aurora Police Department.”
Copyright 2008 Rocky Mountain News