Shot After Surrendering, Family Handcuffed: The Texas Home Raid That Went Horribly Wrong

At 1:45 a.m., Thomas Simpson’s life turned into a nightmare. His house in Grand Prairie, Texas, became a warzone — all because police were sent to the wrong address. Simpson woke to his dog barking and the sound of pounding on his door. Thinking intruders were breaking in, he grabbed his gun and stepped into the garage. But then he saw the badge. He dropped his weapon immediately. And still… the police shot him in the leg.

Bullets tore through walls. One struck a water pipe, flooding his home. His children, 13 and 16, and his wife were handcuffed in patrol cars for four hours. Hours. Meanwhile, Simpson was in the hospital, nursing a gunshot wound — a wound he didn’t ask for.

“This is my house. My family was inside, my nephew was in another room,” Simpson said. “I was terrified they’d get hit. My wife was in bed. Those bullets were going straight toward her.”

Grand Prairie police say they were responding to a disturbance call but ended up at the wrong home — an error caused by a 911 call coming from a cellphone and a dispatch system mishap. Simpson insists he never fired a single round, yet police are pushing for him to be charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon against a peace officer, a charge that could send him to prison for five years to life.

Simpson sees it differently. “The only people committing crimes here are the cops,” he said. “They need to pay. There need to be consequences for their actions.”

The bodycam footage from the raid hasn’t been released, but it will be reviewed by the Dallas County District Attorney before any grand jury decision. Still, this is far from an isolated incident. Across the country, innocent families — Black families in particular — have been terrorized in botched raids, from Breonna Taylor in Kentucky to homeowners in Florida and Louisiana.

Texas law is on Simpson’s side: the state has some of the strongest self-defense protections in the country, especially for residents defending themselves in their own homes. But even with the law in your corner, nothing erases the fear, the damage, and the trauma inflicted in the middle of the night.

Simpson plans to sue. He plans to hold everyone accountable. And in telling his story, he’s sending a clear message: mistakes like this cannot go unanswered, and families should never have to live in fear inside their own homes.