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Police raid suspected meth house, only find fish tank[MN]
KARE 11 News ^ | 29 Apr 2008 | Scott Goldberg

Posted on 04/30/2008 9:27:20 AM PDT by BGHater

Brooklyn Park police were looking for a meth lab, but they found a fish tank and the chemicals needed to maintain it.

And a few hours later, when the city sent a contractor to fix the door the police had smashed open Monday afternoon, it was obvious the city was trying to fix a mistake. It happened while Kathy Adams was sleeping.

"And the next thing I know, a police officer is trying to get me out bed," she said.

Adams, a 54-year-old former nurse who said she suffers from a bad back caused by a patient who attacked her a few years ago, was handcuffed. So was her 49-year-old husband.

"They brought us here and said once we clear that area, you can sit down and you will not speak to each other," she said.

Police were executing a search warrant signed by Hennepin County Judge Ivy Bernhardson, who believed there was probable cause the Adams's home was a meth lab.

Berhardson, who was appointed to the bench less than a year ago, did not return KARE 11's phone calls.

"Ohmigod," Adams said as she recalled police breaking down her door and flashing the search warrant. "I just kept saying to them, 'you've got the wrong house.' "

Police soon realized that themselves.

"From a cursory view, it doesn't look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Roehl said the drug task force was acting on a tip from a subcontractor for CenterPoint Energy, who had been in the home Friday to install a hot water heater.

"He got hit with a chemical smell that he said made him light headed, feel kind of nauseous," Roehl said.

The smell was vinegar, and maybe pickling lime, which were clearly marked in a bathroom Mr. Adams uses to mix chemicals for his salt water fish tank.

"I said, 'I call it his laboratory for his fish tanks,' " Mrs. Adams said, recalling her conversation with the CenterPoint technician. "I'm looking at the fish tank talking to this guy."

Police say there was no extended investigation, just an interview with the subcontractor.

"Everything this person told us turned out to be true, with the exception of what the purpose of the lab was," Roehl said.

Adams is looking for a lawyer.

"I could say that about my neighbor - I smelled something when I went in their house," she said. "Does that make it right for them to go in there and break the door down and cuff you? I think not!"

Police say the detective who asked for the search warrant is an 8 ½-year veteran, but he just started working in the drug task force.

CenterPoint energy maintains the home was "unsafe" and it would have been "irresponsible" for the subcontractor not to report it.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; US: Minnesota
KEYWORDS: banglist; centerpointenergy; donutwatch; gregroehl; house; ivybernhardson; jackbootedthugs; meth; minnesota; police; policestate; wod
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To: JWinNC
Geez... how hard would it have been to investigate just a little bit more before knocking down doors?

Or to walk up and knock on the front door for a conversation, the way civilized people do.

61 posted on 04/30/2008 12:37:38 PM PDT by CGTRWK
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To: patton
The money point in the article is that the energy contractor replacing your hot water heater is really a police informant.

I wonder if mr waterheater has ever been arrested ???

Wouldnt surprise me if he wasnt recruited in exchange for a 'bigger fish'...

62 posted on 04/30/2008 12:49:18 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Choose Liberty over slavery... the gulag awaits ANY compromise with evil...LiveFReeOr Die...)
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To: BGHater
From a cursory view, it doesn't look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Have your officers EVER done anything wrong, Capt. Roehl? ;)

63 posted on 04/30/2008 12:57:09 PM PDT by Fundamentally Fair (There was once consensus that the world was flat.)
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To: Gilbo_3
Wouldnt surprise me if he wasnt recruited in exchange for a 'bigger fish'...

Despite this case smelling so fishy, it's clear that the judge was in the tank with the cops.....scales of justice seem tipped - sad tail.

64 posted on 04/30/2008 12:58:26 PM PDT by ninonitti
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To: MarineBrat
My solution is to sanely fix the problem. The drama queen solution is to throw the cops, who are following orders and doing their sworn duty, in prison for life.

thats funny...the 'sworn duty' is to uphold and protect the population at large...willfully and enthusiastically violating numerous God given rights in an effort to follow illegal orders is just an excuse for thuggery...

that BS didnt save the nazis back then, and shouldnt now either...

when screwin over, hurting/killin innocent families becomes "just doin my JOB"...it is time to change jobs imo...

LFOD...

65 posted on 04/30/2008 1:04:04 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Choose Liberty over slavery... the gulag awaits ANY compromise with evil...LiveFReeOr Die...)
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To: MarineBrat
people weren’t brutalized in any way

WRONG...

But I’m convinced beyond any measure that cops who execute search warrants shouldn’t be thrown in prison for life because the person who is searched was innocent

not because the people were only innocent, but because of the way they were brutalized and terrorized and could very easily have been killed for exotic fish...

66 posted on 04/30/2008 1:12:05 PM PDT by Gilbo_3 (Choose Liberty over slavery... the gulag awaits ANY compromise with evil...LiveFReeOr Die...)
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To: patton

“The money point in the article is that the energy contractor replacing your hot water heater is really a police informant.”

DING! DING! DING!-—WINNER!

I’ve recently become aware of a friend’s neighbor who has a similar role in her job by providing tips to Law Enforement. Don’t know if they pay her or not. It’s interesting to find out they’re around us more than we think.


67 posted on 04/30/2008 1:16:47 PM PDT by Rebelbase (Carbon is the fifth most abundant element on the planet.)
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To: BGHater

I designed my home to be difficult for home invasions. There are a number of doors, tight hallways, landings and stairs (depending on which exterior door is breached) to negotiate before reaching a bedroom. By that time I’ll be racking 12 ga slugs, 00 buck or 7.62X39s from good cover. No knock warrants might be recognized as legal in the SCOTUS but not here. If you break in you’re a home invader period.


68 posted on 04/30/2008 2:17:07 PM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin 1936. Olympics for murdering regimes. Beijing 2008.)
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To: Gilbo_3

mister waterheater has the dreaded “previous criminal record” (a underage consumption arrest back in ‘95’ and caught with a doobie back in ‘99’)

hence, he needed a beatdown.


69 posted on 04/30/2008 2:20:14 PM PDT by WOBBLY BOB (Conservatives are to McCain what Charlie Brown is to Lucy.)
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To: MarineBrat
Presumably the warrant was issued legally buy a judge

Considering what some judges will do unbought, there is seldom any need to pace Humbert Wolfe

70 posted on 04/30/2008 4:34:44 PM PDT by Oztrich Boy (Holy State or Holy King - Or Holy People's Will - Have no truck with the senseless thing.)
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To: Gilbo_3

“people weren’t brutalized in any way”

>>WRONG...

I just wasted several minutes of my life thinking that you may have had a point that I didn’t pick up from my first read of the story... and so I went to the source and read the entire thing again.

As far as I can tell, this is your definition of “brutalized.”

They were gotten out of bed. They were handcuffed, allowed to sit down, and told not to speak to each other.

Get a life and stop brutalizing me!


71 posted on 04/30/2008 4:53:52 PM PDT by MarineBrat (My wife and I took an AIDS vaccination that the Church offers.)
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To: Gilbo_3

>>that BS didnt save the nazis back then, and shouldnt now either...

Cops=Nazi. Nice!


72 posted on 04/30/2008 4:57:35 PM PDT by MarineBrat (My wife and I took an AIDS vaccination that the Church offers.)
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To: VRing
"This kind of thing is going to keep happening until we hold the cops and judges personally responsible for their negligence."

Once a republic is corrupted at every level of government, the end is not far off. At least you identified the problem and the remedy. I hope you have sucess in implement your solution.

73 posted on 04/30/2008 6:20:15 PM PDT by An Old Man ("The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they suppress." Douglas)
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To: BGHater
From a cursory view, it doesn't look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Other than break into a house on some pretty ambiguous "evidence". The Judge who signed rubber stamped the warrant should be impeached and the officer or officers who provided the affidavit supporting it should be dressed up as pirates and selling ice tea to tourists in t-shirts.

74 posted on 04/30/2008 6:49:21 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: BGHater
From a cursory view, it doesn't look like our officers did anything wrong," said Capt. Greg Roehl.

Other than break into a house on some pretty ambiguous "evidence". The Judge who signed rubber stamped the warrant should be impeached and the officer or officers who provided the affidavit supporting it should be dressed up as pirates and selling ice tea to tourists in t-shirts.

75 posted on 04/30/2008 6:49:28 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: dashing doofus
Lucky she didn't have a dog that started barking. I like how a home maintenance contractor now has the authority to get a judge to sign a warrant for a no-knock raid.

What you want to bet it wasn't a warrant for a "no knock" service of the warrant, nor an "outside normal hours" service either?

But the modern idea of "knock and announce" is a very quiet knock, one "police search warrant" followed a millisecond or three by the ram breaking the door down. The time was probably the latest or the earliest allowed by a "regular" search warrant in that jurisdiction. The story doesn't say what time the raid took place, but it does say the woman was sleeping. I suspect it was the "early" option.

76 posted on 04/30/2008 6:57:30 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: trussell
Amazingly...I heard this comment come out of the mouth of a public defender when I was helping to prosecute a 5 time felon who had attacked me just months earlier.

The felon is the lucky one. You didn't kill him. Could have you know.

77 posted on 04/30/2008 7:00:13 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: MarineBrat
I'm concerned with that, and I'm also concerned that people on FR think that a cop who is handed a search warrant and told to go do his duty should be thrown in jail for life

I agree "for life" is extreme. And depending on circumstances even "to jail" might too extreme.

But it should be the responsibility of every participant in the raid to be sure that, they have the right location, that the basis for the warrant is valid and truly provides a pretty good idea that crime is being committed. And if they don't do those things, then they should be held personally responsible. Personally, as in the damages and compensation should come out of their own pockets, not the taxpayers.

It's not a war zone and the Constitution is still in place. Just because there's a warrant doesn't make the search, or it's method of execution, reasonable.

In this case, with such ambiguous evidence, and none to indicate probable resistance, they could have served that warrant with a uniformed officer and a couple of detectives showing up a a reasonable hour, knocking on the door, sans battering ram, and presenting the warrant to the occupants.

Like every military member, every cop and every sheriff's deputy takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution. It's time they are held to that oath.

78 posted on 04/30/2008 7:08:17 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: MarineBrat
The people weren’t brutalized in any way... they just were the victims of a mistake

Being dragged out of bed may not be brutalization, but it comes pretty close. It's also the sort of thing that ends up getting people, "civilians" and police alike, killed. They were lucky this time. There's a lot of folks around here, one with a similar salt water aquarium, where the the police would have likely ended up with bullet holes in at least one of them, and of course so would he, a probably his petite wife as well.

79 posted on 04/30/2008 7:12:56 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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To: Valpal1
The problem is judges issuing no-knock warrants on flimsy suspicions and tips.

It probably wasn't "no knock". But you know how that goes.

knock..."Police search warrant

Wham!

.
80 posted on 04/30/2008 7:16:39 PM PDT by El Gato ("The Second Amendment is the RESET button of the United States Constitution." -- Doug McKay)
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