Cops Shoot Dog in Wrong-Door Raid, Force Handcuffed Kids to Sit Near the Corpse

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23536

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http://reason.com/blog/2012/08/10/st-paul-cops-shoot-dog-in-wrong-door-rai

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."
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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?)
 
So, if I read this correctly... They did not have a warrant to search the Franco household? They obtained a warrant to search the Ybarra household and went to the wrong house?

Without a warrant they effectively illegally entered someones household and committed police brutality?

As far as I see, there is no loophole and they are holding someone with evidence they illegally obtained... It's dicey though...

EDIT: I see they actually had a warrant for the Franco household, but it was based on information on their Neighbour... Every way i look at this it's a clear case of police negligence and brutality.
 
Wow :( poor dog but for some reason this is making me smile. I love it when police fuck up. Had their information been correctly obtained and they did find what they were looking for in the house, all of this brutality, lack of decency, and abuse would have been justified and brushed under the rug.

:) 30 million gotta hurt, task force of St. Paul Minnesota.
 
Gotta love the US, at least for the ability to actually sue LEA's.

You can claim 30 million for something like this but when my door was broken down by cops with a battering ram, and when my family including my 2 year old are held at gun point on false information, there's "nothing you can do, sir".
 
You can claim it, doesn't mean you'll get it. How often do people actually win cases like this? Googling doesn't turn up much, 2 or 3 results from this year. One of them from Canada, one from the US that's been going since around 2004 for wrongful imprisonment for murder...
 
stardust.hero said:
Wow :( poor dog but for some reason this is making me smile.
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No wonder you mod The Dark Side.

(Kidding!)

I do agree that, when police fuck up, it draws people's attention to what the fuck they are doing, and whether they really should have the power they do.

But that is going to create deep emotional trauma for those children. It may take them a decade of psychotherapy to get over it.
(Or a few good MDMA or mushrooms experiences? Don't mean to be trite or insensitive, but the theme of drugs may come back to save them...)
 
so fucked up. i hope everyone responsible gets canned and that the plaintiff wins the 30million in damages. i bet the dog was a lab or something. i guess the cops had nothing better to do in response to finding out they were riading the wrong house. oh well, were already here so lets see if we cant find anything illegal...wink wink.

big deal they found a 22. pistol, as long as the guy doesnt have any previous criminal charges he should just get a slap on the wrist. now if he was a felon and on parole or something it would be totally different, but from the sound of it he has a good chance of it getting thrown out for a bad search. those poor kids must have been so freaking terrified, not to mention having to sit next to their dead family dog. it pisses me off reading article like this, mainly because the cops will lie and do whatever it takes to con a judge into signing a warrent or allowing a no nock search. they will lie about the address, the occupants, amount of drugs/money all so they can legally obtain a search warrent.
 
According to the suit, Franco was convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm, and remains behind bars.
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this guy must have the shittiest lawyer in Minnesota. How does he get convicted after that debacle??? Even Vinny Gambini could get that charge thrown out of court.
 
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