THE AFTERNOON of May 21, 2020, Yolanda Irving was relaxing in her bedroom in East Raleigh, North Carolina. The city was in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, so her three kids milled around the apartment. Irving’s teenage daughter, Cydneea, was in her room across the hall, and her 20-year-old son, Juwan, was in his wheelchair playing video games. Outside, Irving’s youngest, Jalen, then 12, sat on the stoop with three teenage neighbors.
Suddenly, more than a dozen officers from the Raleigh Police Department’s Vice and Selective Enforcement Unit (SEU, the department’s version of SWAT) ran at the boys with riot shields and assault rifles, according to interviews and multiple lawsuits against the city of Raleigh. Thinking they were about to be shot, the boys ran inside for safety.…