"Bow down to the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve."

[url]libpub.dispatch.com/cgi-bin/documentv1?DBLIST=cd01&DOCNUM=35491&TERMV=92601:6:[/url]

POLICE RAID WRONG ADDRESS LOOKING FOR ROBBERY SUSPECT

Wednesday, August 15, 2001
NEWS   05B  

By Matthew Marx and Bruce Cadwallader
Dispatch Staff Reporters

A Franklinton man and three roommates, including a pregnant woman and her 12-year-old daughter, said they were handcuffed and humiliated when police officers stormed the wrong home looking for a robbery suspect.

Police said SWAT officers raided the home on Sunday morning based on information from a confidential informant who on the same day had helped them arrest another suspect at a nearby house.

About 11:30 a.m. police officers descended on Joe Boyer's home, 120 S. Dakota Ave., and, Boyer said, shoved him facedown in the street in front of his porch.

"I told the cops, 'I know you didn't come here just because I smoked pot,' '' said Boyer, 32, a rock musician.

When police tossed a concussion grenade inside the home, Boyer said, he thought officers had shot one of his roommates.

"I thought someone died in here,'' Boyer said.

Officers knocked over items, breaking a TV and two of Boyer's guitars, said Jason Powell, 22, who was sleeping when police burst in.

Also handcuffed and forced to the floor were Nicole Solis, who is nine months' pregnant, and her 12-year- old daughter, Carmen, the residents said.

Whenever any of them tried to speak, officers cursed them and repeatedly ordered them to "shut up,'' they said.

A SWAT officer who was there said everyone in the house was handcuffed with plastic straps for their safety as well as the officers'.

"A pregnant woman can shoot you just as fast as anyone. We were probably in that house a total of 10 minutes,'' he said. "When we left, everybody was fine and detectives were on the way.''

(continued)

An hour earlier, SWAT officers had arrested Jason Walker, who lived a block away at 123 Avondale Ave., in connection with a series of home-invasion robberies. Walker, 29, was charged with one count of aggravated robbery.

Police had spent 12 hours watching Walker's home and arrested him when he drove to a nearby convenience store, said a SWAT supervisor who asked not to be named.

Armed with "no-knock warrants,'' officers then broke into Walker's house, using flash-bang grenades and distraction techniques. One of three pit-bull dogs inside was shot and wounded as officers stormed the house, a SWAT officer said.

Weapons and items thought to be stolen were found in the house, police said. No one else was arrested.

Police yesterday defended the raid on Boyer's home, saying the informant told them they would find items from several violent break-ins and perhaps a second suspect.

"This was no mistake. We hit the target we were ordered to hit,'' the SWAT supervisor said. "It's clear to us now that our (informant) is full of ----.''

He said he has been ordered not to comment on the raids, especially because Boyer has filed a complaint with the internal affairs bureau.

"If a mistake was made, it was probably by the people who wrote up the search warrant,'' Deputy Police Chief Antone Lanata said yesterday. "What I know is that the house on Dakota Avenue was not involved in any of this and we are investigating that.

"My concern was 'Did my guys go into the wrong house?' Well, the answer is yes and no. They went into the wrong house, but they did it for the right reasons.''

The city paid a 79-year-old woman $3,100 in 1990 to replace doors and belongings after a SWAT team incorrectly raided her house. At least three other such incidents have been documented during narcotics raids, police said.

TROOPER KILLS WOMAN
Police: Pot present in Gorst shooting

Authorities say nearly a pound of marijuana, close to $1,000 in cash and six hollow-point bullets were found in a pickup truck stopped by a Washington State Patrol trooper in Gorst last Thursday in an incident that led to a fatal shooting.

The discovery was revealed Wednesday in a report filed in Kitsap County Superior Court by Washington State Patrol Detective Matt McMillen. The report also provides the first detailed account from the patrol about what happened.

A search warrant for the truck was issued the day after Trooper Ron Kessler killed Rosa Hammer, 27, of Port Angeles during a confrontation with Hammer in which Kessler was wounded in the hand.

Hammer and her 5-year-old daughter had been in the white Chevrolet pickup driven by Tessa Baskins, 21, of Port Angeles. A backpack also was found in the truck.

The narrative McMillen filed said Kessler pulled the vehicle over in Gorst and took Baskins into custody for suspicion of smoking marijuana and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

The court document said, "Kessler re-contacted the truck to speak to ... Hammer. A struggle ensued over control of a backpack. ... Kessler and Hammer began wrestling on the ground and Hammer produced a revolver, which she fired at ... Kessler, striking him in the hand."

"They continued to struggle for control of the weapon," the narrative said, "... Kessler was able to draw his back-up weapon and fire three shots that struck Hammer.

"He retreated ... away from Hammer and maintained cover until other officers arrived. Hammer died at the scene."

Contents of the truck included $787 cash and three Ziploc bags field tested as marijuana, totaling about a pound, according to the detective's report.

Inside the backpack, McMillen reported, were clothes, $220, a small amount of marijuana, six bullets and foam ear plugs.

Troopers are allowed to carry backup weapons, but it was unclear why Kessler did not use his regular sidearm.

Tyrrell said investigators with the patrol and Kitsap County Sheriff's Office have yet to talk with Kessler, and offered no information beyond McMillen's report.

Kitsap County Prosecutor Russ Hauge said no charges have been brought against Baskins, who is not in custody.

Baskins submitted to a urine test after her arrest and admitted to having been drinking earlier in the day and to smoking marijuana in the truck just before being pulled over, McMillen's report said.

Published in The Sun: 08/16/2001

[red] the driver Baskins was arrested for DUI prior to the shoot-out[/red]

Sounds like, maybe, they were belligerent about their home being violated. Of itself, that mandates execution. They got off easy.

A Chaska police officer was shot in the leg Tuesday night, sparking a standoff that ended several hours later when the alleged gunman was killed by police.

After the officer was shot about 7 p.m. in front of a mobile home, the suspect barricaded himself inside, said Chaska Police Chief Scott Knight.

When negotiators spoke to him on the phone, "he expressed his desire to die and to take as many officers with him as he could," Knight said.

The chief said two officers went to the 500-unit Brandondale Mobile Home Park in southeastern Chaska Tuesday evening to check on a man who was said to be heavily armed and suicidal. The suspect came out with a long-barreled gun and one of the officers was shot.

The officer was taken to Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis, where a nursing supervisor said he was in satisfactory condition Tuesday night. Police did not immediately release his name.

Shortly after midnight, about 30 residents applauded as law enforcers dressed in camouflage gear emerged from the area that had been cordoned off for about six hours and put away their rifles.

It was the third incident in three weeks in which metro-area officers have been wounded in a shootout or similar conflict.

The suspect in Chaska, armed with a shotgun and rifle, held police at bay as officers from several departments -- including a SWAT team and a State Patrol helicopter equipped with an infrared camera -- blocked off the surrounding area.

Snipers took up positions around the mobile home.

Knight said that after the suspect fired at a car carrying a woman and two children, hitting the car twice, "we knew we had to deal with the situation in an extreme manner."

Two Allina ambulances entered the park at 9:45 p.m., shortly after onlookers heard two more shots fired. Several more shots were heard from within the blocked-off area shortly after 10 and again about 10:45 p.m.

Jason Rotter, 24, said he was visiting a friend in the trailer park when he heard the initial shots about 6:15 p.m. Rotter, from Eden Prairie, said he saw a man break out a front window from inside a mobile home about 100 yards away and fire a shot.

"We saw the officer go down and yell that he was shot," Rotter said. He said five officers already were on the scene, and more officers arrived within five minutes.

The man in the mobile home fired about six shots, Rotter said. Police then fired between 20 and 25 shots.

Brian Almsted, who lives in the park just down the road from the suspect, said he was "trying to shoo people out of the way" when he heard three gunshots from behind and above where he was standing, and glass flew over his head and into the street.

"There were at least a dozen children in the street," he said. "The whole gunfire thing is happening right around us."

Police had blocked off the main entrance to the park, and an emergency exit was blocked by large posts driven into the ground. Firefighters pulled out the posts, and residents were able to walk or drive away from the scene, Almsted said.

Dennis Roberts, who has lived in the park since 1971, said he saw officers surrounding the suspect's house and heard a flurry of gunshots as he was driving by to go to a grocery store.

"This is about the most serious [incident] I've ever seen," he said. "It's been real quiet" otherwise.

Roberts said it was an unusual way to observe National Night Out.

[img]www.ar15.com/members/albums/SPECTRE%2Fkwikext%2Egif[/img]

I guess we're out there," he said, gesturing to some other residents standing nearby. "What a way to meet your neighbors."

Pat Sniffin was eating dinner with about five other people when he heard what sounded like shotgun fire. About 7:30 p.m., officers came to his door and asked for his help. "There was a raid and things got out of hand," Sniffin said in recounting what police told him. He and his family were asked to leave and officers took over his house, he said.

Harry Haskin, who lives a couple of blocks away, said he hadn't heard so much gunfire since he served in Vietnam.

"It was a pretty ugly firefight," he said. "Boy, that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up." As he spoke by telephone from his home at about 10:30 p.m., three shots sounded and a helicopter flew overhead.

Pat Englund, another resident, said that three officers with guns drawn came to her door about 8 p.m. and told her to leave. She and a friend waited out the standoff in a parking lot near Old Audubon Rd. and Engler Blvd., outside the park.

She said the man had moved into a home on Kelly Road, near the entrance to the park, in recent weeks.

"All I know is we need to keep him [the suspect] in our prayers," Englund said. "He must be really desperate to be doing what he's doing now. My prayers go out to everyone involved in this."

Firefighters from the Chaska Fire Department set up a plastic tarp filled with water inside the park to help officers guard against heat exhaustion. The temperature at the time of the shooting was about 90.

On July 17, Columbia Heights officer Michael McGee was seriously wounded as he walked home from work. A man who lives on McGee's block has been charged with trying to kill McGee and with wounding two other officers -- Columbia Heights Sgt. Val Dietz and Minneapolis officer Judith Rollins. All are recovering from their injuries.

On July 29, Minneapolis officer Ryan Rivers was shot in the leg as he and his partner approached a house on the North Side after a police chase and shootout ended in the alley behind the house.

-- Staff writers Terry Collins, Pam Louwagie and Maria Elena Baca contributed to this report

Spectre, stop it my sides are hurting.

Gee, I guess those turkey donuts really do make you drowsy.

Please, Imbrolio, I'm begging you, stop these posts before we have a virtual riot! I think we all know that 'mistakes are made' and 'boys will be boys' and all that, but my head is still hurting 'cause of that last one.

Seriously, though, you know how problematical it is for you when you 'forget' to renew your drivers license BEFORE it expires on your b-day.
How you can be arrested for something so simple as a single marihuana cigarette, while the lady next door is strung out on prescription drugs?

Well it seems as if each police department would have one officer in charge of locating proper addresses for busts!  I mean it's not like it hasn't happened umpteen thousand times before!

Let the lawsuits begin. That way we ALL get to pay in added taxes for the gross, stupid, assinine mistakes of a few!

Confidential informants are notoriously bad on getting the addresses correct, why? 'Cause they're f'ing [b]stoned[/b] when they go there and even more [b]stoned[/b] when they leave!

If you were in the lawncare business, you wouldn't even start cutting the grass before you made absolutely certain that you were at the right address.  Why so little attention to such a 'minor' detail when you're about to make a [b]dynamic entry?[/b]

[b]Face it, it's because YOU DON'T REALLY CARE![/b]

That can be the only rational explanation.

Luckily for the taxpayers of Franklinton who will have to pay civil damages to their unlucky fellow citizens, the neighborhood is likely to be lower class and the actual damages to the shotgun house will be minimal.  Thank God this didn't occur on Silk Stocking Lane!

But then again, it NEVER occurs in that 'hood.

Eric The(Let'sJustDeclareTheWarOnDrugs'Won'AndBugOut)Hun[>]:)]

I beg to differ, but, that was not a backup gun, that was an "unregistered" "Throw Away" used for planting on an unarmed person who gets shot to death by mistake. Normally these are confiscated from felons and never turned in.

I understand the concept of DYNAMIC ENTRY,
but why does personal property have
to be destroyed? Why can't the Police
wait until people leave the house
to arrest them. I would rather take
a BG down on the street than charge into
a house.

Law Enforcement has a hard job to do.
No one denys them that.

It would be dishonest, though, to hold them to the same "whoops" standard as we hold everyone else.

When a Law Enforcement Officer or Office makes a major mistake. I often hear blind the Law Enforcement defenders jump up to remind us that "everyone makes mistakes", and we should somehow take the mistakes made by Law Enforcement in that context.

Well, sorry. There has to be a much much much much higher standard.
When my butcher makes a mistake, I get the wrong cut of meat.
When the guy who mows my lawn screws up, and mistakenly mows under one of my outdoor Bonsai trees, I lose a Bonsai tree.
When the mechanic mistakenly puts a dent in my car while it's in for repairs, all I have to deal with is a dent.

When Law Enforcement officers kick in my door, guns drawn, putting me and anyone in my home in a potentially deadly situation, sorry.
That ain't the same as getting a Porterhouse instead of a T-Bone.

Sure. Everyone makes mistakes. But if you are trusted to wear a badge, and bestowed with the power to directly and perminently affect someones life in an adverse manner, your mistakes for damn sure better be very minor, and few.
You can't blow them off as "just mistakes"...
The brave officer with a revolver and an attachment to his community has been replaced by psuedo-soldiers, many of them very young, and heavily armed. Not to mention with an apparent axe to grind, or so my encounters have shown me.

Landon

[-!-!-] to all cop haters. Imboglio, you can kiss this [moon]

McUzi, I have to agree.  Cops should be held to a higher standard.

These examples are unfortunately just poor planning and policework!! does anyone smell lawsuits???

Imbroglio keep up the great work. its about time someone told it like it really is.

Imb isn't a cop hater...he is a realist!

About 1975, my friend (a married woman at home alone with 2 little children) had her Carson CA door kicked in by L.A. Sherriffs.  At the same time, the back door was kicked in. Supposedly there was a report of guns fired, yadda yaddah.

Never happened...kids were watching tv on, she was studying.

Fortunately she and the kids survived the event. They never looked at LEO in quite the same way afterwards.

This just can't be true.  Police having to deal with criminals with guns? [:O] I bet they didn't know that when they decided to get into law enforcement.  

You call a plumber to fix the toilet and he says,"I'm not going to fix that thing if you poop in it." [puke] This person picked the wrong career.

Swatdog: add the top one to your list too; if your out there.