ANDERSON — An Anderson woman was left without a livable home Wednesday after the Anderson Police Department SWAT team used tear gas and other methods to try to coax out a fugitive who wasn’t there.

Mary Williams said her rental home at 120 W. Third St. was destroyed after the SWAT raid, all the windows busted out and the lingering effects of at least 15 canisters of tear gas making it impossible to stay in the house for more than a few minutes.

“I’m homeless,” she said. “I don’t have nowhere to stay. I don’t have any clothes. My house is so destroyed, you would have thought I was a notorious drug dealer.”

In fact, police were looking for an alleged drug dealer when they raided Williams’ home. Her boyfriend’s son, Tracy Miller, also known as Tracy McCloud, has an APD warrant out for his arrest for the armed robbery of Studio 2 Salon on Dec. 23 and another warrant issued by U.S. marshals for selling cocaine.

APD Sgt. Bill Casey said dispatchers received an anonymous tip Wednesday that Miller was hiding in Williams’ home.

“We believe this guy was possibly armed,” Casey said. “It’s the same guy that went into a place and robbed four women at gunpoint. We take those kind of things seriously.”

Williams said when police knocked on her door about 6:45 p.m., she told them Miller was not in the residence. When officers asked if they could bring a canine into the home for a search, Williams gave them permission.

“I went outside across the street waiting for them to bring the canine,” she said. “We stood out there for two hours. They waited until it was pitch dark, then started shooting off tear gas. They didn’t bring out a canine unit.

“If they would have brought a canine unit in, everything would have been resolved.”

But Casey said Williams would not give police permission to bring in a canine to search the house, an action that would have made the SWAT operation unnecessary. Casey said Williams had a pit bull, and she was unwilling to allow the canine unit in the house.

“She didn’t want us to come in with a dog, but we can come in and search the house,” Casey said. “We wanted to use the dog for officer safety. The supervisor on duty decided to contact his boss. They talked about it and decided to get a search warrant and get the SWAT team involved. That’s when all the fiasco happened.”

Madison Superior Court 3 Judge Thomas Newman said he signed the search warrant about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“They had pretty reliable information that (Miller) was in there,” he said.

But Miller was not found in the home, and Williams is asking the city for restitution for her destroyed property. She plans to hire an attorney to pursue the case.

“I am going to sue them,” she said. “I have to get something out of this. I’m not going to let this go because my life savings is destroyed.