The oddest April 1st story so far

Radley Balko is an American journalist whose work I link to and quote from fairly frequently. Since he joined the staff at Reason magazine, he's pretty much been the go-to guy for law enforcement coverage, especially non-knock raids-gone-wrong. This, therefore, is a very strange event indeed:

Not an April Fool’s Joke

So at about 8:30am this morning, while I was in the shower, there was a loud banging at my door. I decided it couldn’t be important enough for me to cut the shower short, so I decided not to answer. The banging continued, louder and more persistent. I got out, peeked out the window, and see a bunch of Alexandria Sheriff's Deputies outside my door. Honest to God, my first reaction was, "Wow, this is one ridiculous April Fool's joke."

So I got dressed. The pounding continued, and my dog was going crazy. I was a little freaked out now, given that I'm sorta' the main critic of police raids, and there are a bunch of cops banging on my door. I answered, and the cop flashed his badge. I could tell pretty quickly by the look on his face that I wasn't the guy he was looking for. He showed me a picture of a scary-looking fellow, and asked if the man in the photo lived at my house. I said no, and that I'd lived at the house for three years. Apparently the guy either lived in the house before me, or was using my address as a decoy.

The comments are running about 50/50 between "good thing nothing happened" and "they've punked you, hoping you'd write it up as intimidation". The timing is another head-scratcher . . . were they (the police) trying to wind Radley up, in hopes he'd try to exaggerate the event or were they trying to demonstrate that not all police activity starts with a broken-in door and ends with occupants of the house handcuffed and their dogs shot dead?