St. Paul Cops Shoot Dog in Wrong-Door Raid, Force Handcuffed Kids to Sit Near the Corpse
Teri- Oregon
2012/08/11 05:30:05
|
|
|||||
|
4 votes
|
|
11% | |||
|
2 votes
|
|
5% | |||
|
3 votes
|
|
8% | |||
|
27 votes
|
|
71% | |||
|
2 votes
|
|
5% | |||
A St. Paul, Minnesota family claims in a lawsuit that police officers who conducted a wrong-door raid on their home shot their dog, and then forced their three handcuffed children to sit near the dead pet while officers ransacked the home. The lawsuit, which names Ramsey County, the Dakota County Drug Task Force, and the DEA, and asks for $30 million in civil rights violations and punitive damages after a wrong-door raid, also claims that the officers kicked the children and deprived one of them of her diabetes medication.
The suit also alleges that one of the lead officers with the task force "provided false information" in order to get a warrant to raid the Franco family's home. (That information being the Franco family's address, and not that of their supposedly criminal neighbor Rafael Ybarra.)
And boy, did Ybarra miss out on a horrific raid. Courthouse News reports:
But on the night of July 13, 2010, the task force broke down the Francos' doors, "negligently raided the home of plaintiffs, by raiding the wrong home and physically brutalizing all the above-named occupants of said house," the complaint states.
Even after learning that they were in the wrong house, the complaint states, the drug busters stayed in the Francos' home and kept searching it.
They "handcuffed all of the inhabitants of the plaintiffs' home except plaintiff Analese Franco who was forced, virtually naked, from her bed onto the floor at gunpoint by officers of the St. Paul Police Department SWAT team and officers of the St. Paul Police Department."
The complaint states: "Upon forcibly breaching the plaintiffs' home, defendants terrorized the plaintiffs at gun and rifle point.
"Each plaintiff was forced to the floor at gun and rifle point and handcuffed behind their backs.
"Defendants shot and killed the family dog and forced the handcuffed children to sit next to the carcass of their dead pet and bloody pet for more than an hour while defendants continued to search the plaintiffs' home."
One child "was kicked in the side, handcuffed and searched at gunpoint," the family says.
Another child, a girl, "a diabetic, was handcuffed at gunpoint and prevented by officer from obtaining and taking her medication, thus induced a diabetic episode as a result of low-blood sugar levels."
Shawn Scovill of the taskforce may have raided the wrong house, but he didn't want to let the opportunity to rifle through someone's things go to waste. So he and his team ransacked the Franco house for over an hour, and managed to find a .22 caliber pistol in the "basement bedroom of Gilbert Castillo," which the suit says they attributed to the head of the Franco household, Roberto Franco. According to the suit, Franco was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm, and remains behind bars. (If anyone can weigh in on the legal loophole that might allow evidence seized during a wrong-door raid to be used in court, please fill me in. Also, are Minnesota gun laws that strict?)
Since the DEA is named in the suit, the Francos' legal team will likely find itself going head-to-head with Obama administration lawyers, who argued a similar case earlier this year before the Ninth Circuit. Short recap of the proceedings: The DOJ sought a summary dismissal of a lawsuit filed against seven DEA agents for their rough treatment of a family of four--mother, father, two very young daughters--during a wrong-door raid conducted during the Bush administration. The Ninth Circuit, denied the DOJ's request for a summary dismissal, and drew a bright line between how adults are treated during raids, and how children are treated during raids.
So there's reason to hope that any request of a summary dismissal of the Francos' case (by local law or federal attorneys) won't fly based simply on allegations that the children were cuffed, kicked, deprived of medicine, and made to sit near their dead pet for an hour. But I don't think suing over the wrong-door aspect will get the Franco family very far, unless they can prove the mistake on the warrant was intentional and that the officers were aware of the address error before the raid was conducted.
Read More: http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/10/st-paul-cops-sho...
Top Opinion
-
Kurbdog 2012/08/11 06:20:14
It is quickly getting that cops can do as they please, as long as it is in the interest of "just doing their job".
Whenever a cop shoots a person or dog - for ANY reason - there should not just be an "internal investigation." Prosecutors should look into actual criminal charges the same way they would for any other shooting instead of automatically giving them the benefit of the doubt based on the department's say-so, and others should have the same ability to pursue charges in cases where the prosecutor is too friendly with the department. Are there justified shootings? Yes, there are, and not every shooting needs to proceed to a full criminal trial...but "it was an mistake" doesn't count, and the facts of the situation need to be looked at with critical eyes.
Moreover, any cops who distort the record and tr...
Whenever a cop shoots a person or dog - for ANY reason - there should not just be an "internal investigation." Prosecutors should look into actual criminal charges the same way they would for any other shooting instead of automatically giving them the benefit of the doubt based on the department's say-so, and others should have the same ability to pursue charges in cases where the prosecutor is too friendly with the department. Are there justified shootings? Yes, there are, and not every shooting needs to proceed to a full criminal trial...but "it was an mistake" doesn't count, and the facts of the situation need to be looked at with critical eyes.
Moreover, any cops who distort the record and try to cover for each other should also face criminal charges for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and perjury where applicable. In any event where officers actually ARE indicted - not even convicted, just indicted - I'd think it should be enough for departments to bar them from law enforcement forever, just in case: Even without a conviction, no one is simply entitled to be a cop.
Also, families should start suing individual officers rather than departments, or departments should sue individual officers after they get sued...the consequences need to be as personal as possible for power-drunk cops.
Finally, end the War on Drugs, which has come at an immeasurable cost in life among other things.
I suspect there might be charges in this particular incident, but charges should be common rather than exceptional cases.
http://www.constitution.org/b...
And definitely somebody should go to jail. Let juries sort out who.
This isn't the first wrong-house drug raid. What makes this worse is that they searched the place *knowing* it was the wrong place.
So if it was your mission to call out BS, you failed terribly, try again latter after you get some sleep. And if you want proof of this, google Oscar Grant, Anaheim California, Marcus Warryton, better yet go to copblock.org. At least us democrats have the courage to call our politicians out on this, when was the last time you heard a republican call out police brutality or excessive force, hell Fox news celebrates when a police officers shoots a unarmed person. And when democratic citizens call fowl we are accused of playing the race card.
So once again you fail.
Now i am aware what occurred in the late 80s and through 90s because i had those actions perpetrated on me, and yes i am aware that democrats did not show a spine then, but hey they are growing one now.
I am also aware what a two party system does, but until the people can trust any third party its better to dance with the devil you know, because the one who don't know may be a worse dancer.
These are the things i care about:
Social Justice
a Fair progressive tax system
a regulated financial systems
sensible gun laws
environment protection
getting off fossil fuel
a fair and balanced middle east policy
and legalization of Cannabis
and no more pre-preemptive wars
universal healthcare for all (single payer)
Now i am old enough to realize i will never get all that want, that is why i am not a single issues voter, and why i could never support a republican or a Libertarian.
But some how i think our interest are not one in the same, you want a libertarian form...
Now i am aware what occurred in the late 80s and through 90s because i had those actions perpetrated on me, and yes i am aware that democrats did not show a spine then, but hey they are growing one now.
I am also aware what a two party system does, but until the people can trust any third party its better to dance with the devil you know, because the one who don't know may be a worse dancer.
These are the things i care about:
Social Justice
a Fair progressive tax system
a regulated financial systems
sensible gun laws
environment protection
getting off fossil fuel
a fair and balanced middle east policy
and legalization of Cannabis
and no more pre-preemptive wars
universal healthcare for all (single payer)
Now i am old enough to realize i will never get all that want, that is why i am not a single issues voter, and why i could never support a republican or a Libertarian.
But some how i think our interest are not one in the same, you want a libertarian form of government, where as i would like a progressive government that understands some things must occur for now, but we should always strive to make them not needed, and that is not even on the radar of Libertarians.
So for now i will dance with democratic politicians until a see another viable candidate who comes close to what i think should happen, and for now i think Obama will get us there.
And by reading some of your past statements i am going to ask you to forgo the Obama insults, i have been respectful in my reply to you, so i hope will be the same. If not if you want to take it to the gutter, well darling we can go gutter.
Because it is no lie
Thanks for proving my point that Liberals have to lie to try to prove their false accusations.
Despicable and pathetic.
BTW, I'm NOT a Republican and I agree with Teri, BOTH parties are equally to blame for the mess. The D's created and keep ramping up the war on drugs, followed by the R's doing the same so they won't be labeled "soft on crime", there are just as many in the rank and file R's who are calling out police brutality are there are rank and file D's and most police brutality comes because of the "war on drugs" which cops think is them against all the rest of us, in their eyes we are all guilty until proven otherwise (and the majority of cops are D's, or at least vote that way, just like the majority of major media "reporters").
The officers will never go to jail because they've been found to have used proper protocol.
If this is a perfect example, what about Mayor Cheye Calvo who had his dog shot and killed during a police raid on his house.
This is the state we live in. This is the life we have chosen. We have a society that will drop to their knees and defend the actions of these thugs just because they wear a badge. It is always your fault. You alone. Our elected officials have nothing better to do than to bitch about politics. Our non-elected officials have nothing better to do than to sign away our freedoms.
Eminent domain, strip searches, no-knock warrants. Don't tell me we are not living in a country full of government thugs. Call me crazy, call me stupid. But you do not make me feel safe if this is how you protect me.
I hope this family wins their case, or in part anyway, as 30 million is overboard and I don't believe in extorting the police anymore than I support the police extorting their victims.
There are two things that need to happen to stop this kind of atrocity from ever occurring again: first, the "qualified immunity" police and prosecutors and even the judges who sign these warrants needs to end so that each of them being sued MUST pay the award (or settlement) out of their OWN pockets rather than the taxpayers' coffers; second, the "war on drugs" and the "war on terror" must be ended, both, completely ended, not just altered.
"The biggest problem with suing agents of the State is that the money would come out of the already overburdened taxpayers’ hides. This is why I’m a very strong advocate of abolishing immunity in these cases. Let the criminal scumbags who commit these atrocities pay restitution to their victims OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS. If that means losing their homes, their property, or the clothes off their backs, so be it. The taxpaying public should NEVER have to suffer for crimes committed under the color of authority."