Posted on 08/20/2011 8:32:26 AM PDT by Immerito
CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa Police in SWAT gear busted through a door and searched a Cedar Rapids home for drugs Thursday morning, but came up empty.
At least 12 officers surprised the tenants at 1135 33rdSt. NE when they arrived around 7 a.m. with a narcotics search warrant. Sgt. Cristy Hamblin, a police spokeswoman, later confirmed that nothing was seized from the house.
No one was taken to jail, but the tenants of the house, Justin Davis, 28, and his girlfriend, Erica Lewis, 26, were charged with disorderly house and signed a promise to appear in court, police said. No one was injured during the raid.
Davis said his 5-year-old daughter was in her room when officers busted a hole in the front door. He said he came to the door when he heard a K-9 unit dog barking, and was pulled outside, where he was told to lie face down in his front yard. He said the officers had him at gunpoint.
Davis was visibly upset after police left and mentioned moving out of the area.
What do you think my neighbors think about me now? Davis said. My character has been assassinated, and Im really upset about that.
Davis said he and Lewis were handcuffed while officers searched. They were told police had information that there was drug activity at their house.
Hamblin said search warrants are issued only after a judge reviews the evidence collected and signs the warrant. In general, police investigate tips about drug activity by interviewing neighbors, looking through trash and using a drug-sniffing dog, Hamblin said.
We dont take just one persons word, under normal circumstances, Hamblin said.
Davis said he is on probation and it would be stupid for him to be involved with drugs.
They should have made sure they had concrete evidence before they knock in someones door, Davis said.
Disorderly house is described as a building or room where someone resorted to for illegal activity involving drugs, alcohol, gambling or prostitution, according to a city ordinance.
same topic, same source:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2766540/posts
Two different, but similar, scenarios.
The homeowners are different as are the addresses.
That would make too much sense and would save the taxpayers a few bucks that would lost to the resulting lawsuits.
So to put this all into prospective...Cedar Rapids is a town of 120k folks...which probably has around 5k citizens who utilize some type of drug illegally...on a weekly basis (my humble figures). The cops in this case got some information from some snitch or associate of this guy...figuring they had a great open-and-shut bust. They bring Sparky the drug-sniffing dog along with them....and end up with nothing.
On the positive side...the SWAT team marks up another episode and will go back to ask the city council to continue their budget cost...even though most folks in town likely question the necessity of a SWAT team.
As for the team itself....they can be happy that they didn’t shoot the family dog, or that someone inside didn’t misinterpret things and shoot half of the SWAT team as they busted down the door. Just another day in America.
LOL...if a “disorderly house” is a criminal offense, I’m going up the river for a long time.
In my opinion, when the cops come up empty in a cluster snafu like this, they should face the same charges I and my buddies would face if we invaded the house. Sort of a loser-pays system but I expect cops would be even more prone to plant evidence.
What? They couldn’t find a cat to stomp to death or a dog to shoot in front of the family? They were probably really hoping to prone out the wheelchair-bound, alzheimer’s grandparent. Animals.
wtf is that?
you can get charged for not picking up your room?
SWAT busts down wrong door.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY82seEBw5w
It's in the last line of the article.
Disorderly house is described as a building or room where someone resorted to for illegal activity involving drugs, alcohol, gambling or prostitution, according to a city ordinance.
“....illegal activity involving drugs, alcohol, gambling or prostitution, according to a city ordinance.”
Clearly not an arrestable offense, since they had a dozen cops there.
So, what were these people doing, sitting around drinking beer and playing poker for money? Or did they find like a joint or something and the cops didn’t want to look like dopes using a SWAT team to make such a minor arrest.
But, they look kind of foolish anyway. I’m glad no one was harmed in this exercise of undue police power.
Now it's routine. There might as well be SWAT Encounters website or reality tv show.
It means if they hadn’t charged them with something they would have to pay to put the door back up/
This way the guy has to fix his own door.
What should happen is the Judge who issued the Warrant should be charged with malfeasance.
“What? They couldnt find a cat to stomp to death or a dog to shoot in front of the family? “
Progress!!!!
I have seven, I’ll repeat, SEVEN children and I was thinking exactly the same thing.
“resorted to for”
There must be some new rules to the English language because I don’t understand what the hell that means.
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