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.
Or to walk up and knock on the front door for a conversation, the way civilized people do.
I wonder if mr waterheater has ever been arrested ???
Wouldnt surprise me if he wasnt recruited in exchange for a 'bigger fish'...
Have your officers EVER done anything wrong, Capt. Roehl? ;)
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.
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...
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...
“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.
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.
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.
Considering what some judges will do unbought, there is seldom any need to pace Humbert Wolfe
“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!
>>that BS didnt save the nazis back then, and shouldnt now either...
Cops=Nazi. Nice!
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.
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.
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.
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.
The felon is the lucky one. You didn't kill him. Could have you know.
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.
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.
It probably wasn't "no knock". But you know how that goes.
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