Cops Review Drug Raid Prompted By Power Bill

nbcsandiego.com ^ | 3 31 04 | nbcsandiego.com

[freepatriot32]

CARLSBAD, Calif. -- Police will conduct an internal investigation into a raid at a home that was searched for marijuana because of a high electricity bill. No drugs were found.

Police Chief Thomas Zoll said Tuesday the department will review procedures that led to the March 19 to ensure similar incidents don't occur again.

Officers raided the home of Dina Dagy and her family because records indicated the family used three times more electricity than their neighbors.

Dagy attributed her high power bill to her three children, four ceiling fans, three computers, two to three daily loads of laundry and one to two daily dishwasher cycles.

High electricity bills often indicate that residents are using lamps to grow marijuana indoors, police said. The Dagy house was also targeted because a drug-sniffing dog responded to the home and the family put its trash out later than neighbors, which can indicate suspicious activity, police said.

Police raided 24 other homes the same day. They found marijuana in 20 homes and arrested 24 people.

The internal investigation is expected to take one to two weeks

[searchandrecovery]

...information ended up in the MATRIX database...

Yea, I'd read an article about that thing. Just did a google search (curiosity) and got a recent news story/update - seems like the Matrix is withering a bit:

http://www.record-journal.com/articles/2004/03/21/news/news03.txt

These huge citizen database things are pretty scary (tia, matrix, ?).

Getting back to this thread topic - it still doesn't seem right for police to access utility bills without a search warrant or cause more probable than high usage. None of the state's bidness how much electricity I use.

[TKDietz]

It could have been racial profiling or profiling based on other characteristics. You know, I could probably think of 24 people I suspect of being involved with drugs and write their names down. All of this would be based on the way they look or act, or maybe some rumors I heard. Cops can do this too, no doubt better than I could. Now if they just had some excuse for searching these people's homes. Oh, hey why not look at electric bills and see who has a high one. That could give the cops reason to search the homes of at least a good chunk of the people they suspect.

Where I live our appellate courts have basically said it's okay for police to pull people over if they suspect the people might be carrying drugs as long as they have committed some minor offense that the police can hang their hat on. That sounds reasonable but this is actually allowed even if the police let everyone else slide for the same infractions. For instance, we've had road work for a couple of years on the patch of interstate highway going through my county. Often one lane of the highway will be blocked by those orange plastic barrels. The traffic tends to be bumper to bumper during much of the day. Almost everyone driving down the road on those one lane patches is technically following too closely. The cops pull over every car with Arizona, New Mexico, or California tags driven by Hispanics or long haired types for following too close, and will only occasionally pull over normal "respectable" looking people unless they have a hunch or a tip. They almost always have drug dogs with them and routinely run the dogs around the cars if people refuse consent for a search. They routinely ask for consent to search in cases where they are dealing with minorities or anyone who remotely looks like they might be involved with drugs. They don't care about the following too close infractions. They are just looking for drugs.

There is nothing illegal about using more electricity than your neighbor. But if courts start allowing this to be probable cause for warrants, you can bet that police will use this in their fishing expedition arsenal, and that segments of our society like young people with the wrong addresses, and/or the wrong hair styles and/or skin color will mysteriously be the ones most likely to be searched because of excessive electric bills.

[dljordan]

Are you kidding? These are specially trained dogs and very valuable. And if you talk back to the dog you will be charged with assaulting an officer.

[dljordan]

Are you kidding? These are specially trained dogs and very valuable. And if you talk back to the dog you will be charged with assaulting an officer.

[dljordan]

Are you kidding? These are specially trained dogs and very valuable. And if you talk back to the dog you will be charged with assaulting an officer.

[B4Ranch]

5 out 6 were found to be growing MJ. The SCOUS should authorize enlargement of the program! /SARCASM

[coloradan]

Of course they're very valuable ... they are what let the police search or get warrants to raid anything, anyone, anywhere, any time. Good as gold. The ultimate exception to the Bill Of Rights:

"Jupiter's being in the seventh house might mean nothing, the tea leaves might be only so much vegetable matter, the Tarot cards are just random, and the psychic's pronouncements are too ambiguous to be useful, but my dog says you're a drug criminal and we're getting a no-knock warrant today based on that information."

[Sweet Land]

I'd take those odds [83% success rate] to Vegas.

The article doesn't say that grow operations were found at all 20 houses, or that high electric bills were involved in any but one.

[TLI]

The Associated Press reported Friday that Michigan is now considering dropping out of Matrix. New York and Wisconsin announced two weeks ago that they were withdrawing. Other states that dropped out include Alabama, California, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky, Oregon, South Carolina and Texas.

The states that have withdrawn cited concerns about privacy, costs and even dwindling participation in the project.

Darwin in action . . .

[PaxMacian]

I'd like to know exactly what was found in these homes. A couple of loose joints or giant
marijuana patches?

Me too! Or if they concentrated on a neighborhood as well. Because some neighborhoods will have ratios of possessors, protectors and propagators of herb far greater than others. If it was a neighborhood as well then it has become our worst nightmare of house to house searches with a thin disquise.

[Criminal Number 18F]

The reasons the cops hit this house:

• High electricity bill. I have over 30 computers in my house. In the past, I've had a recording studio in here with all the gear that entails. Damn right my electricity is high

• Take out trash late. Jeez, I wasn't aware there was a schedule. I take it out when I get to it. Better tighten up my act before I become a statistic.

• Drug dog alerted. I'm safe on that one, at least.

If I had scarfed up a known Taliban on evidence that thin, the collection point would have sent him back to me with instructions to make nice, give him some MREs and bottled water, and take him back to his village with apologies. Hell, when the Taliban arrested people, they had more evidence than that.

I support drug enforcement, but if we are going to use a looser evidence standard among our own people than we do on foreign terrorists, we are going about it improperly.

I share others' concerns about the police "Internal Investigation." About the only good thing such an investigation is good for is helping Tom Sawyer paint a fence, and everyone in and out of law enforcement knows that.

Exercise: draw a line down a sheet of paper, dividing it vertically in two. Get a year's worth of references to "internal investigation" in law enforcement, using, say, Nexis. On the left side make a mark every time an internal investigation finds misconduct or criminality. On the right side make a mark every time an external investigation finds misconduct or crime that the internal investigation somehow didn't find.

Question: are there any marks on the left side?

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[TKDietz]

This was apparently some six month long major DEA investigation called "Operation Grow Up" where they ended up busting a lot of young people who had graduated from the same high school around the same time. Many were apparently in on it together and the main guy apparently had keys to many of the houses. From what I have read they claim they also had a tip about the Dagy's house that was confirmed by the high electric bills and by the drug dog alerting on the garage door. They claim to have found over 3000 plants in the various homes and apparently a few of the homes were being used for growing only with no one actually living in them.

I just wonder how much money they spent on all of this and how much they will spend prosecuting and imprisoning all of these kids who were apparently clean cut jocks from the same school who started a little pot growing organization and got caught. Other than causing maybe some temporary inconvenience to some pot smokers who will have to call someone else to get their weed, this bust will have none of the impact law enforcement claims to make on these types of cases. All that will happen is that a bunch of kids will get that ten year mandatory minimum or worse in prison where they'll learn new criminal tricks, and when they are released ten years or more from now instead of having grown out of the crazy youthful stage in their lives and moved onto careers and families like most would have done they'll all be unemployable in legitimate society and more likely to commit crimes. Nothing good will come of this.

[Sweet Land]

Drug dog alerted. I'm safe on that one, at least.

No, you're not: "No drugs were found. [...] a drug-sniffing dog responded to the home".

[TLI]

Hell, when the Taliban arrested people, they had more evidence than that.

Folks in Russia are nostalgic for the KGB as well. Seems that they had a habit of NOT kicking down doors as when they did knock on a door they had actual evidence. Granted, the law that was "broken" was miniscule and the punishment disproportionate but even the KGB knocked and asked if so and so was home. Of course, one can not play out macho cop worship fantasies by respectfully knocking on doors, it’s much more fun to play dress-up and wear black ski-masks . . . . .

[razorback-bert]

Drug dog alerted. I'm safe on that one, at least.

Nope alert signs for dogs are sitting, standing, laying down,barking,peeing,pawing and sleeping.

While I was in New Mexico USA (that is what the state's car tags say), last week I read a story about drug busts in a small town. The police arrested twenty four people for possession, six were let go because they had no drugs on them, but one guy had $382 in small bills which was seized.

I used to carry $500-1000 in cash (atms aren't everywhere or don't always have money in them) as emergency money while traveling in the outback, but read so much about cash arrests, that I went down to $300, looks as if that might be a problem too.

[razorback-bert]

Do you think, they inspect at the electric bills of McMansions?

[Sweet Land]

Like the ones legislators and their major contributors live in? Sure they do.

[Excuse_My_Bellicosity]

What, high utility bill's are not probable cause? < /sarcasm >

If the cops had their way, giving an officer a dirty look in traffic is probable cause to kick in your front door, terrorize your family, beat the crap out of you, and "find" a bag of pot on your coffee table. These people are out of control.