Henrico Police chief says officers accidentally entered wrong home, but disputes some of resident's claims

(An update to this story was published Dec. 4, 2020; click here to read it.)

Henrico Police Chief Eric English Tuesday admitted that police officers entered the wrong home last weekend while responding to a medical alert call from a GPS-enabled system but challenged some claims made on Twitter by the man who lives there.

Shortly before midnight Nov. 27, Michael Bass, a Henrico man who as a rapper goes by the name Michael Millions, Tweeted: “Yo. I’m going sue the [expletive] out of Henrico Country Police. Imagine accidentally falling asleep on your bed and waking up to several police in your [expletive] bedroom... guns and flashlights. [Expletive] just happened to me.

“This is the 3rd time in the last 4 months Henrico Police have entered my home unannounced. Problem is, they aren’t even looking for me. They are looking for some elderly person that needs them but some how their call gets routed to my house. ... problem is, I’m a black man in 2020 with police in my [expletive] bedroom and I have no clue how they got in my house. My gun is ON my nightstand. Imagine what the [expletive] I’m thinking waking up to strange people around my bed.”

His tweets quickly got the attention of police and elected officials, among others.

During the Henrico Board of Supervisors’ meeting Dec. 1, English told supervisors that the division had received a call through a medical device and heard a person who “was yelling for help.” But the service directed officers to a home that turned out to be Bass’s instead.

When their knocks didn’t elicit a response, police entered the residence. Bass and another person were awakened by the officers, English said.

After reviewing body camera evidence from the response, English said it was clear to him that some of Bass’s claims were not true.

“At no time were there any guns drawn or weapons shown or any of that, because our sole purpose there was to render aid,” English said. “What was Tweeted was not accurate in terms of what our response was,” English said. “We went in, it was a very cordial conversation with the individual. At no time did any of my officers pull out any weapons.”

The officers who responded talked with Bass after they entered, explained that they were responding to a medical alert call and asked if anyone in the home was injured, English said. They quickly realized that they were in the wrong place and later were able to locate the residence they’d actually been seeking, though it turned out that the original caller did not need help, he said.

“So no police officers standing over top of a bed with flashlights? No guns drawn or hands on pistols, none of that type of thing?” Varina District Supervisor Tyrone Nelson asked English of the incident at Bass’s house.

“From what I saw, I never even saw officers enter the bedroom,” English said. “He actually came out and we were still kind of in hallway of the stairwell.”

But, English told board members that he understood Bass’s frustration – and that he shared it.

“We don’t want this happening to anybody in the county – it’s a scary situation for all involved, and so we need to rectify and figure out why this did occur,” English said.

Police officials are in touch with the alert company in an attempt to determine why the system dispatched officers to the wrong home, apparently on multiple occasions, English said.

“We’re trying to make sure that this doesn’t happen again,” he said. “I certainly understand his concern. . . but at the same time, we were just trying to do the right thing by rendering aid to somebody that we felt was in need.”

Bass told WTVR-TV that an attorney had advised him against conducting on-camera interviews about the incident with the media but said that a conversation he had recently with English was “productive.”