A single tear streams down the face of Anna Alcis. In the last 72 hours, she has become a widow and a single mother of eight.
The family's fight is now getting support from Reverend Al Sharpton, after 43-year-old Carlo Alcis had a fatal heart attack during a NYPD raid of the family's home.
Sharpton demanded a full criminal investigation into the circumstances leading to Alcis's death.
"This case is one of the most horrific that I've heard of," said Sharpton. "Over a cell phone you raid folks house and criminalize a family, and you're a block a and a half away from the hospital, and don't even know how to deal with protecting someone that apparently needs medical attention."
"What happened, what's going on? Is that legal to go in somebody's house without a warrant?", said Alcis's brother Rudy.
Insisting police barged into their apartment in a frightening early morning raid, the distraught family has accused the NYPD of invading their home, a privacy intrusion so startling they believe it might have caused their father's fatal heart attack.
"When we woke up there were flashlights in our faces. We saw 10 police officers in the basement," said Imanuel Alcis, the victim's son.
The police say they were looking for a suspect who had punched a woman in the face and stole her phone.
They claim he was seen entering the building. That's when they started knocking on doors.
Police say the father Carlo Alcis opened his door. Police questioned the sons and determined they were not suspects, but then the father went into cardiac arrest.
"Blood come out from my brother's mouth. That's when they came over to my nephew to ask him to give him mouth to mouth," said Rudy Alcis, the victim's brother.
Police experts Eyewitness News spoke to say the policy on warrantless home searches is clear.
Permission is needed unless police are in fresh pursuit of a suspect committing a felony crime or in the case of serious danger such as a hostage situation.
Policy experts say neither case existed here.
"Everyone in the apartment sleeping. No idea how police gained entrance. No one gave permission to police to enter," said Sanford Rubenstein, family attorney.
While we may never know whether the search was a fatal invasion of a family's rights. It is clear a mistake was made in dispatching the ambulance which took more than 20 minutes to respond even though the hospital can be seen from the family home.
"The truth is, when the call came into EMS they were given the wrong address," said Israel Miranda, President, of the Uniformed Paramedics.
Police arrested 16-year-old Stephon Foster on Friday in connection with the cell phone robbery.
Foster lives in the building, but had no connection to the family.
He has at least four prior arrests.
The theft victim used her find my phone app and they tracked the phone down and the suspects prints were on the phone.
The NYPD says that they had permission to enter the home. The Brooklyn DA says they are waiting for the Medical Examiner's report before investigating.
The Medical Examiner's office says an autopsy was performed Friday afternoon but the results so far are inconclusive pending further testing.
"This family will fully cooperate with the district attorney's office and any other governmental agency that investigates this tragedy," said Rubenstein.
