Top Boston Officials Call for Healing After Bungled Drug Raid

BOSTON —  The mayor and police commissioner attended Sunday services at a Baptist church to deliver a message of peace and healing after a bungled police drug raid led to the death of a retired minister.

“A mistake was made, and we’re going to heal those mistakes,” Mayor Thomas Menino said after the service at the Dorchester Temple Baptist Church.

The Rev. Accelynne Williams, 75, a retired Methodist minister, died of a heart attack Friday, 45 minutes after a police SWAT team broke into his apartment. Police chased Williams into his bedroom and handcuffed him.

Police were looking for a large cache of cocaine, marijuana and guns described by an informant. The informant gave the wrong apartment number, police said.

“We went to bring peace to the community . . . yet the drug problem continues,” Police Commissioner Paul Evans said after the service. “We have to continue. We have to search within ourselves to go on and still fight the fight.”