CMPD releases body-worn camera footage of failed operation that left a home damaged

Charlotte-Mecklenburg police released year-old body-worn camera recordings Friday that show officers attempting to serve felony warrants on a suspect they believed to be hiding inside an east Charlotte home.

On July 11, 2020, at 6:05 p.m., police tried to serve felony warrants on Trey McClendon, 20, at a home on Andora Drive off East W.T. Harris Boulevard. After hours of trying to communicate with the suspect, Special Weapons and Tactics team members fired pepper spray and tear gas into the home to lure the then 19-year-old out, according to a CMPD news release.

The SWAT team’s efforts were unsuccessful. Officers entered the home only to find structural damage they had caused, including holes in the roof and broken doors and windows — but McClendon was nowhere to be found.

Officers’ offer of alternate living accommodations to the residents of the home was declined, so the city’s risk management office got involved to facilitate repairs to the home — including that of one hole created by an officer who fell through the ceiling.

On the morning of July 17, police arrested McClendon without incident on Rockmoor Ridge Road. They charged him with outstanding warrants for assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill inflicting serious injury, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with the intent to kill, two counts of discharging a weapon into occupied property and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon.

The 88 recordings CMPD released Friday — varying from seconds to hours in length — show the entire operation, which lasted until 2 or 3 a.m., police Capt. Jonathan Thomas said at a news conference. The SWAT team arrived at the home around 11 p.m., he said.

“We spent several hours attempting verbal communication, PA system, tracking down phone numbers and anything we could do to try to get the person we believed was inside outside the residence,” he said.

The operation was prompted by complaints police received from neighbors and tips from patrolling officers, Thomas said. McClendon had also been arrested at the home on Andora Drive and charged with possession of a stolen firearm in January 2020, he said.

No policies were broken during the operation, and none were changed because of its outcome, Thomas said.

A damaged home

The London family was confident McClendon was not in their home, so they gave CMPD permission to enter, including giving them the keys, Dominique Camm, the family’s lawyer, told reporters during a press conference a year ago.

The operation left residents of the home spread out and living with other people, Ebony Gunter, whose mother lived with the Londons, told reporters last July.

The family wasn’t at the house when police arrived, but when they did come, Camm said they were “forcibly escorted” to the intersection of Andora and Santa Cruz Trail, out of sight of their home.

“They destroyed our family home, a place where we stayed, a place where we once called home and had family gatherings — a place that we can no longer call a home,” Gunter said at the press conference, held in the front yard of the damaged house last year.

Everything the SWAT team used was to get McClendon out of the home because going inside is a “last resort,” Thomas said.

The family made a claim to risk management and was offered an estimate for repairs the night of the operation, but Thomas said he doesn’t know if they received any money because it’s a secondary investigation from CMPD.

This story was originally published July 16, 2021 at 6:11 PM.