Inside a locked conference room at Toledo Correctional Institution, Anthony Terry shook his head when asked what he might have done to prevent his girlfriend's death at the hands of Lima police.

"There's nothing I could have done different, I don't think," he said yesterday in his first interview since a Lima police sergeant was acquitted on charges stemming from the deadly raid. "I think if the police would've arrested me on the street when they followed me that day, [but] they had to come to her house. She had nothing to do with it."

Terry, 32, is serving seven years in prison after entering into a plea agreement with prosecutors over a 13-count indictment that alleged he sold crack cocaine and marijuana to confidential informants working for police between September, 2007, and Jan. 4 - the day of the fatal raid on the East Third Street house where Tarika Wilson lived with her six young children.

Terry, who said he stayed at Wilson's house two or three times a week, was arrested there that night, led out through the back door, and taken downtown before he even knew that Wilson, 26, had been shot to death and the couple's 1-year-old son, Sincere, injured by police gunfire.

He learned of her death in a phone call to his mother from the Allen County jail about 3 a.m. the next day.

Last week, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia was acquitted on misdemeanor charges that alleged he was negligent when he fired at Wilson and her son.

On the witness stand, he said he had seen a shadowy figure duck in and out of a bedroom door at the same time heard gunfire and believed he was being fired upon. The gunfire actually had come from downstairs when officers shot two pit bull dogs.

Terry, who was not called as a witness in the case, said he doubted the officer's story, in part because he believed the dogs were shot as soon as the officers entered the house and Sergeant Chavalia wouldn't have had time to get upstairs. He also remembers hearing Wilson call out to him just as he was being led out the back door.

"In the process of me coming to the door I heard her say, 'Babe.' That was a name she called me," Terry said, adding that it sounded like a call for help.

Special Prosecutor Jeff Strausbaugh said yesterday that while the state presented considerable physical evidence in the case, it was largely Sergeant Chavalia's story that jurors had to base their verdict on.

"In terms of his actions, absolutely, there actually was no other available witness to his actions, including Anthony Terry," Mr. Strausbaugh said.

During the weeklong trial in Allen County Common Pleas Court, lead defense attorney Bill Kluge at times pointed the finger at Terry for causing Wilson's death and Sincere's injuries. Others have blamed Wilson for allowing a drug dealer to be in her home with her children.

Terry denied any responsibility.

"No, I don't feel responsible," he said. "I think the police should be responsible for his actions, and I think he should be charged with that."

He said Wilson and her children were innocent parties.

"I don't feel that she put herself in a position like that. I didn't sell drugs around her or her kids," Terry said.

Like others trying to figure out how an unarmed woman holding a child could be shot by police in her home, Terry wonders why police did not arrest him on the street after he sold marijuana to the confidential informant that day.

Why wait until after dark to raid a home where police believed he might be, he asked, a raid the officers themselves deemed the most high-risk and dangerous of all raids?

Police testifying during Sergeant Chavalia's trial said it typically is more dangerous to arrest a suspect out in the open where innocent bystanders may be injured. By executing a no-knock warrant at night, they said, they are able to take the occupants by surprise, detain the suspects, and secure the house with the least risk of injury.

Lima Police Chief Greg Garlock said his department is re-examining its procedures in the wake of the Jan. 4 raid, but he said in many cases police do not arrest a suspect immediately after a drug buy for fear of identifying the informant. He said investigators also want to continue making buys so that they can get to higher-level drug suppliers.

Terry, he said, was "not a major player, but I think he's connected to the major players and certainly has an ongoing history in the drug trade in our community. That type of offender in many cases is where we've been successful moving up the chain."

Search warrants unsealed this week in Allen County Common Pleas Court indicate that officers requested the night-time warrant because of the risk that neighbors could warn the suspect if they saw police approaching and because they wanted to protect the officers.

"These officers will be at risk of serious physical harm and the highly motile evidence will be lost if it is necessary to wait until daytime hours to serve this warrant," Investigator Tim Goedde stated in an affidavit requesting the search warrant.

Common Pleas Judge Richard Warren signed the Jan. 4 warrant, which, according to an inventory of items seized that night, turned up "baggies of marijuana" from the night stand and "suspected crack cocaine" from the floor. Marijuana butts, a digital scale, and other drug paraphernalia were collected during a subsequent search of the house Jan. 8, records show.

Although police did not have an arrest warrant for Terry that night, Chief Garlock said he was taken into custody because of the drugs found in the house.

Terry, whose criminal history dates to an incident when he was 14 and stole the license plates off a moped, insisted there was no crack cocaine in the house. He admitted he "smoked weed" every day and kept some with him all the time, but he said he never sold drugs from Wilson's Third Street house and never talked to her about it.

While he said he thought police were following him earlier in the day, he said he had no idea the house would be raided when he heard what sounded like a truck hitting the front door. Officers broke in, shot the couple's two pit-bull pups and then ordered him to the floor. Contrary to the officers' testimony at trial, Terry said he never heard them say anything until they told him to hit the floor.

"I think they intentionally came in there to kill somebody because they didn't identify themselves when they entered the house or nothing," Terry said.

Despite Sergeant Chavalia's acquittal in Allen County, the case is far from over.

Last week, Wilson's family filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Toledo against the city and Sergeant Chavalia for negligently causing her death. The U.S. Department of Justice also is looking at whether it will file criminal civil rights violations in the case - something local black ministers support.

"I just feel justice should be served," Terry said. "I'm going to write the feds."

Contact Jennifer Feehan at: jfeehan@theblade.com or 419-353-5972.

First Published August 14, 2008, 1:44 p.m.