Search Warrant = Gratuitous Destruction

[Rick]

Perhaps cameras were what they were looking for? Certainly don't want to be recorded in this day and age. I would think electronic surveillance would show not only what the place looked like before but what it looked like during the course of the search and the final results. It's closing the barn after the horses left but might be worthwhile for this defendant going forward. I'm glad our LEO are responsible professionals.

[Rick]

Ken, I don't know what's on that red jacket but it sure looks like dog feces in the pic. Either that or a very small cop took a dump. If it is dog then you have to ask if the police did all that.

[Ken]

Ken, I don't know what's on that red jacket but it sure looks like dog feces in the pic. Either that or a very small cop took a dump. If it is dog then you have to ask if the police did all that.

That's cat poop, Rick. There was a cat and a rabbit in the apartment. They let the rabbit out of its cage and overturned the cat's litter box when they "searched." Obviously, they scared the crap out of that cat. Literally.

One other thing.... I don't know too many dogs or cats who are capable of dumping out draws and throwing them on the floor, opening front hall closets and pulling clothes off hangers and throwing them in a pile on the kitchen floor, or pouring boxes of cereal and bags of sugar into the kitchen sink. Never mind overturning couches and breaking the legs off the bottoms.

HOWEVER, the police DID enter with a dog to aid in the search. I'm SURE that the cat and rabbit enjoyed the company.

[Ken]

A few considerations regarding electronic surveillance.....

1. I've had cases where the police seized the very surveillance equipment and hard drive that recorded their "search," under the claim that it was potential "evidence." Of course, the very first thing to be seized during the search was the surveillance equipment itself, ensuring that no recording of the search could be made. (For example, the police seized the security hard drive from Aaron Hernandez' home, yielding purportedly damning evidence.)

2. In one instance where off premises storage was employed, the FIRST thing the police did was to disable the cameras.

3. There is a VERY strong possibility that all home security system video surveillance transmitted over the web is being intercepted and recorded by the NSA and other agencies. What does THAT do for one's privacy?

[Ken]

A disproportionate number of "searches" are conducted on Friday nights or Saturday mornings, ensuring that the defendant will, at the very least, spend the weekend in jail on very high bail (set by the magistrate) before being brought into court. Other things I've seen in the past....

Packages of raw chicken and fish that were tossed out of the freezer and left to thaw - out on the kitchen floor for days before the defendant made bail and returned home.

EVERY package of dried food in the house - from rice to beans to flour to cereal to bags of sugar to boxes of mac & cheese to you name it poured all over the floor.

A refrigerator with an ice-maker chilled water door pulled away from the wall far enough to tear the water line out. Of course, no one thought to turn the water supply off when they left.

Apartments left so poorly secured after the fact that everything inside of value was stolen by third parties.

Bottles of prescription medication opened and dumped into the toilet.

Adult "toys" removed from a draw and thrown on a bed to "enhance" the photograph of the shotgun (found under the bed) that was also placed on the bed to have its picture taken.

[Ken]

Leaving for court now. Arraignment and bail argument is on at 11:00.

[welderguy]

Canid, it's pathetic, but it's more like one criminal gang versus another rather that law enforcement doing its job.

That is a great way of describing it. And 100% true!

[Rick]

In one picture there's a box of gloves that had the gloves pulled out and thrown on the floor. That's pretty obvious the owner's didn't do that. But having worked in other peoples homes for a decade I can attest that some people do live in homes just like that. Dresser drawers on the floor. Trash in the floor. Just like those pictures. I've literally looked for places to put my foot when walking through the house. I've carried cans of bug spray because when I opened the phone up cockroaches scattered everywhere. Gave me the heebbie jeebbies for the rest of the day. Never knew what kind of creepie crawlie got on me when I left. And even at that bad I had a couple I refused to work in because they were even worse. When rats are sitting on the counter I back out slowly.

[Seniorman]

Don't worry folks. Someday when the command is given for the cops to go door to door to confiscate our guns -- and someday in the future, that command will be given -- the cops will just refuse to obey 'cause they'll know it's not a valid "command."

Uh huh.

S.M.

[rebel]

From what I see, I bet it was a sh!t hole before the raid.

[SARKY]

it seems to me that this unprofessionalism has been institutionalized and is being promoted by either the department it self or the politicians in charge. I know here in Oakland the cops have a horrible reputation of corruption and theft of private property. One has to wonder if this isn't planned in order to get us used to this kind of treatment.

[Desert Rat!]

Looks like a little pay back to me.

[Yves]

I just got back from a "house call." A client's home was raided by police with a search warrant tonight.

I understand that criminal defendants don't get much sympathy, but I fail to understand just why police consider a search warrant as a license to destroy everything on the premises. I don't know what they thought they were going to find when they destroyed the mini blinds in the living room. Half of the furniture in the house was destroyed. Two laptop computers were smashed.

I've been to other places where thorough searches were conducted and everything was left almost as it was before the police entered, but the clowns who did this were hell bent on destroying property. I don't consider then to be any better than the criminals they arrest.


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What town is that in? I'll start working in Mass in a month or two and want to avoid it like the plague.

[Yves]

I have a question about how warrants work. If they have a warrant to search your house, does the warrant have to specify which part of the house? I believe that if you have a warrant to search your, say, house, but that doesn't give the police the right to search your summer home, for example, is that correct?

[welderguy]

I have a question about how warrants work. If they have a warrant to search your house, does the warrant have to specify which part of the house? I believe that if you have a warrant to search your, say, house, but that doesn't give the police the right to search your summer home, for example, is that correct?

Here is the Texas Code for search warrants.
http://www.statutes.legis.state.tx.u.../htm/CR.18.htm