A 31-year-old Livingston County woman is in court claiming police wrongly raided her apartment last year.

Catherine A. Short filed papers April 1 in federal district court in Peoria against the village of Dwight, the city of Pontiac and the county of Livingston, saying police officers from those municipalities violated her rights.

Short said she was in her Dwight apartment at about 10:35 p.m. March 26, 2008 when police barged through the door with guns drawn and ordered her to the ground. Short screamed, "I only have weed!" according to police. Short was in her living room and a then 37-year-old male friend was in the bathroom. They were both handcuffed and taken to the Dwight Police station. Short said her knee was injured in the process and she accumulated $20,000 in medical bills as a result, but she did have insurance coverage.

Police said they found marijuana and a glass smoking pipe in plain view on a table in front of Short, but neither Short nor the man were charged in relation to the marijuana or anything else.

About 10 minutes after police entered the apartment, but before they started searching, they said they found a piece of mail that indicated they were in the wrong apartment. Short and the man were brought back to the apartment and police left. A few minutes later, an officer arrived to explain and apologize for the error.

According to Short's lawsuit, police obtained information from an informant that led police to believe drugs were being sold from apartment 10 of the 12-unit apartment building in which Short lived. As a result, police obtained a search warrant from a judge for Apartment 10. Short lived in Apartment 1.

Short's apartment is on another side of the building from the apartment for which the search warrant was issued. Police said as they walked down a hallway in the building to find apartment 10, they saw a door with the number one on it, with the next door having the number 11 and the following door having the number 12, with the next door being the front entrance door. They presumed the number zero had fallen from the door with the number one, which in their mind meant it was apartment 10 — the apartment for which they were looking. In reality, the layout of apartments was not in the expected order and the apartment they believed was number 10 was actually number 1.

The numbers on the doors were of the stick-on type.

Police also explained they had information apartment 10 had a pit bull inside. When they approached Short's apartment door, they heard a dog barking from inside, which further made them believe they were at the correct apartment. Short's apartment and apartment 10 were both on the ground floor.

Short's attorney is claiming police did not do enough to make sure they had the right apartment, such as familiarizing themselves with the layout of the building before executing the search warrant. In a police report, an officer wrote that Short said that in the three years she had lived there, people had mistakenly knocked at her door, looking for apartment 10. The report also said Short said she believed it was strange how the apartment numbers were out of sequence.

The report also said Short told police after she and the man were released and police left the apartment the first time, they got rid of the marijuana and pipe, before the officer came back to apologize.

Short is claiming her right to freedom from an illegal entry and search of her home was violated, excessive force and illegal seizure were used, and she suffered assault and battery. Short is not specifying the amount of money she wants in the lawsuit.

Short is represented by Chicago attorney Kevin B. Rogers. The city of Pontiac is represented by Peoria attorney John P. Fleming. No other attorneys have officially indicated they are representing any of the other defendants. Fleming could not be reached for comment.