Baptist Residence is Raided and Police Confiscate DVR Equipment

While Brandon Baptist joined several others from the Backa Lands and PIV gangs on Monday morning to denounce the senseless murder of Dwayne Gabourel, what they didn’t know was that a team of officers was descending on this Police Street residence, reportedly armed with a search warrant.  They were there to retrieve material from a digital video recorder that captures footage from a series of surveillance cameras around the property.  At the time, no one was at home and the officers reportedly did not serve the warrant prior to confiscating the DVR.  According to Andrea Avaloy, she was informed earlier today that the police department is interested in reviewing the footage to determine whether a person of interest in the Dwayne Gabourel murder may have left the residence during a particular interval.

Andrea Avaloy

Andrea Avaloy, Resident, Police Street

“I wasn’t at home and I got a call that police are here wanting to…They have a warrant to check my surveillance camera. Anyhow, I was trying to reach and they didn’t wait. I got information when I reached that they went into our house without any of the owners here, went and took our DVR and took it to the police station. Anyhow, when that was finished I came and went to the police station and I told them [that] I came to retrieve my DVR. I went on a little runaround from Queen Street to Raccoon [Street] and finally I spoke to Mr. Alejandro Cowo where he says that he has the DVR and he then showed me that he has the warrant and let me go through it and everything. One thing that I have about the warrant, the warrant says that it is specifically a resident of Police Street. It didn’t have our address stating that they’re coming to our address for our footage, it only says a resident of Police Street and on Police Street all the neighbors have surveillance cameras. So why specifically our house they came? And I think it’s illegal because none of us were at home to even say okay, “You’re taking our stuff.”  Nobody. When I came home, my house was wide open and I think it’s wrong. They should have gone about in a better way and a better manner. If they would have waited for me to come home and go over that surveillance [camera] it wouldn’t be a problem, but when I came home I didn’t like what I saw so I went to the police station and I did a report this morning against the police.”

Isani Cayetano

“Did they tell you what they were looking for on that particular surveillance footage?”

Andrea Avaloy

All he explained was that they wanted a… about the shooting of the minor and they wanted some timeframe to see if somebody left from our house. Something like that they asked, but I’m not aware of any of that. We live in the [St.] Martin’s area and the shooting took place on the north side, so I don’t know nothing about that.”