Sorry, Wrong Apartment

The 13 heavily armed police officers, clad in black combat fatigues, smashed into the second-floor Boston apartment in search of guns and coke. They found only a frail 75-year-old man, who retreated into a bedroom. They ran him down and handcuffed him. The old man, a retired Methodist minister who read his Bible daily and abhorred violence, vomited and suffered a heart attack -- a fatal one. He was literally scared to death.

It was not simply another example of a tragic police error but the pathetic end to a long, quiet life of doing good. Williams, a native of Antigua, had spent 40 years as an itinerant pastor in the Caribbean. Ten years ago, he retired and moved to Boston with his wife to be near their only child, who was studying in the area. On the afternoon of March 25, he was at home in the apartment the police had targeted. An informant had told them that drugs and guns were stashed in a second-floor room at 118 Whitfield Street. With a "no- knock" warrant, they burst into the home of the Rev. Accelynne Williams, killing him with fright. Had the cops checked their records, they would have learned that a drug warrant issued last September targeted an apartment on the third floor.

"They should be able to know the difference between decent, God-fearing people and the criminals," thundered the Rev. Albert J.D. Aymer at Parkway United Methodist Church. "Reverend Williams is dead today because of a society that has gone stark mad," he declared. It is one, however, that still acknowledges remorse. Last week Boston's mayor, Thomas Menino, and police commissioner Paul Evans appeared at a community meeting to take the heat. "It is historic for a mayor and police commissioner to come out and say, 'I'm sorry,' " says Rodney Foxworth, co-chairman of a neighborhood council. The mayor has promised an inquiry, but Williams' widow is expected to sue.