Police raid wrong house, kill family dog and make children sit with its bloody corpse, page 1

The police busting down doors in middle of the night and raiding the wrong home and terrorizing the occupants is not something you read about every day, it possibly doesn't even occur somewhere across the nation every day whether or not you read about it. It does appear to happen just a bit too often though, most recently in Lake County, Florida where the unintended victim was shot and killed while answering the door when the raiding officers at least had the courtesy to knock first though refused to identify themselves.

Residents said the unannounced knock at the door at 1:30 a.m. may be the reason why the tragedy happened.

"He was the wrong guy and he got shot and killed anyway. There's fault on both sides. I think more so on the county," Ryan Perry said. "I can understand why he [the deputy] did it, but it should have never gone down like that," Perry said.

But that was a similar instance with an even more tragic outcome. This article is about a family that was raided and terrorized by police while even after realizing their mistake continued to pilfer through their home hoping to find some bit of contraband that would help justify their mistake.

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.

After breaking down doors and shooting the family dog, a drug task force forced handcuffed children "to sit next to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour," and kept searching even after they knew they were raiding the wrong house, the family claims in Federal Court.

Assumedly that is just good police work intended to make the guilty parties reconsider the consequences in case they might ever think to commit those heinous crimes again.

They have to subdue and handcuff every civilian in the house, except perhaps the naked women.

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.

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."

I suppose they figured if they could just locate a little bag of pot in daddy's sock drawer or a line or two of toot tucked away among mommy's personal items then their mistake could all be justified and this would be chalked-up to good police work where hardened criminals were rooted out and discovered during an investigation. After all, though they had the wrong "suspects" they did, however erroneously, have these folks' address on their search warrant.

In summary, the complaint states: "Defendants improperly and illegally remained in the home of the plaintiffs searching and seizing items despite the fact that they had learned that they had raided the wrong home.

"Defendant Scovill lied when he informed the District Court judge who reviewed Scovill's search warrant application that Scovill had obtained information from the confidential informant that the plaintiffs' home was the properly targeted house and that the address and the identity of the individuals who resided therein were the plaintiffs," it says.

It seems they did turn up a small caliber weapon in one of the bedrooms, which normally is not against the law, but regardless of whose room they found it in it must be assumed by police that it belonged to the one person that may have lost their privilege to own a weapon.

During their illegal search, the officers found a .22 revolver in the basement bedroom of plaintiff Gilbert Castillo. The cops "improperly attributed the possession of said weapon to plaintiff Roberto Franco and arrested him."
"Plaintiff Roberto Franco was wrongfully convicted of the alleged offense and is currently incarcerated with the Minnesota Department of Corrections," the complaint states.

With the find of that weapon we can assume the officers could now congratulate themselves for bringing a violator to justice and the press would have nothing contrary to report. That would hopefully make up for any little problem of misidentification and would be another instance the American public just never would have to bother reading about.

The suit seeks $30 million in compensation for civil rights violations and punitive damages.

I hope they receive every penny and the judge decides to award them more.

edit on 7-8-2012 by Erongaricuaro because: (no reason given)