90-Year-Old Woman's House 'Destroyed' By Cops in Wrong-Door Raid
No drugs found.


A broken door. Smashed windows. Residue from a flesh grenade on the carpet. That's the state in which Miami cops left a 90-year-old woman's house after raiding it for drugs. They didn't find any illegal activity, but won't admit they made a mistake.
The woman was interviewed by cbsmiami.com, though she declined to be named. She said the raid happened on December 18th:
"I don't know how the cops got in here. The noise woke me up when something said boom! Like a bomb or something," said the 90-year old. …
Riviera Beach Police said after evidence of criminal activity, they got a search warrant.
"Cops standing over here talking about where's the drugs? I said what? What drugs? Ain't no drugs in here," she said.
After drug-sniffing dogs failed to find anything, the police left. When asked whether they got the wrong address, the department countered that just because the woman didn't know about drugs being sold out of her house "doesn't mean it didn't happen." That ranks pretty highly on the list of hilarious and also worrisome police excuses, in my book.
The cops have agreed to repair the damages to her house, at least—though they have not done so yet.
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The cops have agreed to repair the damages to her house,
Yeah, right.
Cops lie. Its what they do. Its who they are. The lie even when they don't have to, and they are lying here.
It would be utterly awesome if some judge were to order the SWAT team to personally repair her house, under supervsion of the contractor of her choice. Buy the material, schlep it around, pound nails, pull nails when they fucked it up, clean up, everything.
I would pay to see such a reality TV show.
Sure, until the cops start doing things like trying to pound in nails with the butt of a gun, and "accidentally" shoot her.
What would happen if the cops refused? Who would make them do it? The cops?
I know, it's just a fantasy. But in my fantasy, all cops are private, the State has no lcensing or certification control of them, and victims hire cops to investigate crimes and execute warrants but are always free to act as their own cops if they are cheap or don't trust any cops. So yeh, it would be other cops, or family friends (she's 90!), and the cops would have no more right of refusal than any other criminal.
It's like causing a car accident and being ordered to be the other driver's butler!
And they're not going to.
Best case scenario for her - they come right out and admit that they guy who said they'd pay doesn't have the authority to make that promise.
More likely the bill will simply get sent from city department to city department, sitting in someone's tray for a month at each stop, in the hope that she just goes away.
They'll promise again if the CBS Miami ever follows up.
Or they'll say the damages were more than they thought, and they've decided not to pay. Like the medical bills for the kid whose face they burned off.
Well when you think about, the cops don't owe anything for buring off a kids a face. C'mon, they didn't mean to and they were wearing a special costume, so obviously there's no justice in making our heroes in blue pay for children they mutilate.
But did those brave officers get home safely that night? That's all that matters and makes the physical and emotional trauma of this ordeal worth it.
a flesh grenade
Is that like a flesh-light?
Robby has been hanging around Elizabeth too much.
Nah. If he had then he'd have read the comments and fixed it by now.
Nice catch.
I'm pretty sure that's the new slang for suicide bomber.
Well, it's certainly the one I'm going to use now! 😀
It saddens me that it took the commentariat 9 full minutes to catch that. You guys are slipping badly.
I'm disppointed that I read the article after Rebel caught the mispelling and posted on it.
I wanted to ask "You know who else leaves residue from a flesh grenade on the carpet?"
I'm also disappointed about my misspelling.
"After drug-sniffing dogs failed to find anything..."
Wow, up shit creek then if you're the cops. All traces of PC go right out the window. FOR FUCK'S SAKE THEY CAN CUE THE FUCKING DOGS TO ALERT!!!
+1 Clever Hans
Drugs sniffing dogs are magic and infallible.
Yeah, but they only do that when they want to justify an otherwise illegal search. In this case they had the search warrant so there was no benefit to having the dog falsely alert since they still wouldn't have found anything.
It would help armor them in the upcoming civil suit - the dog alerted on 'shake'.
The cops have agreed to repair the damages to her house, at least?though they have not done so yet.
Cops say lots of things. None of them are true.
I don't know, when they say, "I will shoot you, motherfucker!" I tend to believe them.
You got me there.
I'd question that. If the cop intends to shoot you he/she just shoots you. If he/she gives a warning it may just be an idle threat because you cut in front of him/her at the line for Disney Land.
If they say they're going to shoot, then they mean it. If they say they're not going to shoot if you come out with your hands up, they're probably lying.
Luckily she wasn't holding anything that resembles a gun, like a banana.
Ignorance of the law drug dealing on your property is no excuse!!
And how fucking statist a statement is "doesn't mean it didn't happen"?!?!
"Your honor, the state has failed to provide a scintilla of hard evidence that my client committed ANY crime. After being beaten and having his home destroyed, all charges against him are clearly fictitious. To whom should my client petition for redress."
"Look, pal, just because we couldn't prove resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer DOESN'T MEAN IT DIDN'T HAPPEN!!!!"
Prove you're innocent! I said PROVE IT!
This cop believes in the OPPOSITE of the principle our legal system was founded on...nothing alarming about that!
Cops go after bad guys. So if they're going after someone, then that someone is a bad guy. No one is innocent, though the guilty sometimes get off when they hire a good attorney. That's why asset forfeiture is so important. It makes it more difficult for the guilty to defend themselves in court.
The entire legal system is the opposite of the principles of our legal system.
I distinctly remember a torrent of idiocy about how evil the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" was in the case of George Zimmerman. Most all of the people spewing that garbage didn't even seem to understand what they were actually saying.
Most people will waver on fundamental principles for some momentary satisfaction and never give it a second thought.
Well, I for one say that just because there's no evidence that the cops aren't in the employ of a rival drug gang doesn't mean it didn't happen. Clearly the entire Riviera Beach Police Department needs to be put under a federal RICO indictment.
Absence of evidence is evidence that the evidence isn't evident.
They're obviously hiding something.
http://reason.com/blog/2015/02.....nt_5095868
h/t beloved commenter EAP?
Are you the hat tip police? Where were you when I needed you?
the hat tip police have promised to rebuild the link, but have yet to do so.
If I was the h/t Police I would have beaten EAP and stolen civil asset forfeitured the h/t...
Look, the courts have already ruled that the hat-tip police do not have any obligation to police hat-tips.
Just for the record, I want something Homeric. Like, I dunno, Pro Libertate, Sacker of Cities.
THREADKILLER, KILLER OF THREADS?!
"Dropper of Rocks From Orbit"?
Swift-stoning Libertate?
Pro Liberate, because no one does it for free.
Pro Libertate, Seeker, Discoverer, Expediter of Myriad Phenomena.
I think the tip was blown up by the flesh grenade.
Town like this, some people know just where the cops live. Maybe a few "domestic disturbance" calls for their houses at 3am will teach them a lesson?
Cops know where their fellow cops live. It wouldn't work.
So, combining this with the thread below, do the cops know where the judges live?
Recalling a somewhat recent story where cops almost killed a judge for responding to strangers poking around her place at night by getting a gun, no. Though afterwards they did apologize profusely. Gotta keep those warrants flowing.
Cops ain't gonna treat their beloved brethren in blue(tm) like LITTLE PEOPLE!!!
The fuck is wrong with you?!?!?
Almost EVERY time this happens, a judge signed a no-knock warrant.
By now, we should all expect the cops to display the professionalism of the Keystone Cops and the moral rectitude of a Mongol horde.
The judge is supposed to be the prudent adult in such matters. Since the judge is ostensibly supposed to serve "justice", he is the only person involved who is remotely susceptible of being shamed for his failures. The cops have made it pretty clear that "officer safety" is their overriding objective.
The judicial asshat who signed the warrant should be named and ridiculed in every article of this nature. The judge who issued this warrant has no excuse for his failure.
OK, combining this with the thread above, do the cops know where the judges live?
yes. they know where everyone of importance lives, eats, and plays. Otherwise they could be held accountable.
Actually, I would like to see the warrant and whatever information sheet the cops provided to obtain it.
10 to 1 it was based on information from a guy they threatened to bust if he didn't give them basis for a search.
OTOH, I suppose this woman should be grateful that they didn't seize her house under civil forefeiture.
This pathetic excuse for police work is even worse than Reason reports here.
Regarding the warrant:
Pretty good local TV news coverage:
http://www.wptv.com/news/local.....g-her-home
Wow, just wow! If we citizens skirted the law in such a manner, we would be summarily ruled against.
I also have to say that I'm surprised that no lawyer has taken up her case. With this sort of ineptitude, the city would be paying for a lot more than a door and window.
the department countered that just because the woman didn't know about drugs being sold out of her house "doesn't mean it didn't happen."
Similarly, just because the woman didn't know about sheep being fucked in the department "doesn't mean it didn't happen."
let's not go down the sheep fucking road. Last time we did that we had to register accounts.
let's not go down the sheep fucking road.
Words of wisdom, Spencer.
It's not really a road, more of a one way cul-de-sac.
The sheep-fucking incident wasn't what got us registration, it was the insane combo of Mary Stack and White Indian (who are possibly the same person).
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It's often stunning how unaware most citizens are of the danger they face any time they are near a cop and how grossly they underestimate what cops will do, regardless of legality.
I was having a conversation with some WaPo posters (most of them are either ignorant proggressives or equally ignorant conservatives). We were talking about weed becoming legal in DC.
One person made a comment about going down to DC from MD to partake of some legal herb and I told him, you better leave any leftover there, don't drive back to MD with it in your car. So the guy says 'Oh, it's no problem, it's decriminalized in MD' And I said well, you better weigh it, because it's only 10 grams that's decriminalized for possession and even then at best they'll take it and fine you, or at worst and more likely, they'll tear your car apart looking for more. And if it's over 10 grams, they can charge you with felony intent to distribute. So the guy scoffs and tells me it's too difficult to prove intent to distribute even if I have a pound. And I told him, ok, go ahead and drive around in MD with a pound of weed in your car, good luck if you get pulled over.
Even if you were to cross the border between two places where weed is legal, trafficking across that border is still a major felony.
Cmaaan, it's not like a felony could have any effect on your day-to-day life....
I'd expect checkpoints at every major road between DC and Maryland. The only thing that might save a Marylander is that the two are connected by land and there are too many roads to block them all.
On the other hand, you have to cross one of six bridges (including American Legion and Woodrow Wilson via Maryland)to get from DC to Virginia, so expect VA to catch as many as they can.
Oklahoma and Nebraska are already basically doing this on their borders with Colorado. They've got cops and state police watching every road out of Colorado and they're basically just pulling over anyone that leaves, looking for drugs. It's going to be a boondoggle for them, they'll be able to confiscate so many cars it will pay their bonuses for years. It's also sickening, and underscores why weed needs to be legalized at the federal level.
And forget walking across Key Bridge from Georgetown back to Rosslyn completely.
I guess I'll have to be doing my interstate drug smuggling across the river on White's Ferry.
I've actually crossed that way before. It's 30 miles from the DC border, though.
As isolated as it is, that's probably a great place for a checkpoint on general principle.
I've actually crossed that way before. It's 30 miles from the DC border, though.
As isolated as it is, that's probably a great place for a checkpoint on general principle.
I hope that's not the grenade equivalent of a 'flesh light', or you'll need to flash bang the carpet just to get it clean.
Heh, 'flash banging'.
Not too unlike a flash mob.
Flesh mob?
Well, good thing this little old lady didn't have a gun on her and try to return fire. This exact same thing happened in Atlanta a few years ago, they raid her house but it's the wrong house, and the old lady had a .22 pistol for self-defense (it WAS a bad part of town after all) which she used. Unfortunately for her she didn't hit any cops before they filled her with lead. When they realized they had the wrong house, the cops then proceeded to plant evidence, doctor statements, and coerce a confidential informant into lying to try to cover up the mistake. Google 'Kathryn Johnston shooting' for more details.
Thankfully, those cops were prosecuted and found guilty - AND sent to prison.
The out of control cops in the clink, now that is truly amazing.
Residue from a flesh grenade on the carpet.
What's a "flesh grenade" ?
*unzips pants*
I guess she did not have a dog since we did not read about them shooting it.
The bums need to be sued to hell and back.
When bigger morons are found, some PD will hire them.
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