Bobothebigdog
Member
- Joined
- May 20, 2003
- Messages
- 65
Its happened again, and this time in my county. 
Someone needs to get the boot.
http://www.mtdemocrat.com/articles/2004/12/09/news_stories/1n_01.txt
Someone needs to get the boot.http://www.mtdemocrat.com/articles/2004/12/09/news_stories/1n_01.txt
Dec. 9, 2004 - Sheriff, state parole sued in home invasion imbroglio
The couple whose home was mistakenly raided by a state parole officer and El Dorado County sheriff's deputies asked to assist him has filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking more than $500,000 in damages.
"Not only did they enter the wrong house," attorney Mark A. Miller said of law enforcement. "But there's no rational reason for the mistake. It was just bad police work."
Miller, representing Armando Cuevas and Heather Burlette of Diamond Springs, said Tuesday that "the reason for law enforcement being on Mr. Cuevas' porch was to make an arrest of a parolee who didn't live there."
The parole officer, wearing jeans and a Hawaiian shirt, went with three deputy sheriffs the night of Feb. 25 to the Diamond Springs home where they believed parolee Randy Whitmore resided. Cuevas, who with Burlette and their baby boy had lived at the home for five months, thought his home was being attacked by a stranger after the Hawaiian-shirt wearing parole agent appeared at the front door.
Cuevas struck the officer, was arrested on suspicion of battery and had to post $25,000 bail.
Charges were never filed against Cuevas and officials have since acknowledged they mistook him for parolee Whitmore, who had given the Diamond Springs home as an emergency contact address before Cuevas and his wife moved there. Cuevas resembled Whitmore in the photograph the state parole officer provided, according to law enforcement.
The civil lawsuit filed in Sacramento against the state agency and the Sheriff's Department does not yet have a trial date.
El Dorado County Sheriff Jeff Neves said Wednesday that the state agency initiated the Feb. 25 effort in Diamond Springs and sought assistance from the local law enforcement department.
"This was a state parole incident," Neves said.
Members of the Special Enforcement Detail of the Sheriff's Department assisted the state parole unit at its request, Neves said.
"It wasn't initiated by us or SED," the sheriff said.
Terry Thornton, spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections, said Wednesday that "we normally don't comment on pending or active litigation." State parole is a division within the Department of Corrections.
A review of the incident sought by the District Attorney's office concluded that the parole officer obtained the Diamond Springs address from records of the California Department of Corrections, Division of Parole and Community Services.
The brief encounter Cuevas had with the state parole agent wouldn't have allowed the Diamond Springs resident to recognize the parole officer as a law enforcement official, the DA's review found. Officers realized after the struggle with Cuevas that he was not Randy Whitmore, according to the DA.
El Dorado Hills attorney Miller said mistaken raids on homes by law enforcement - such as the one his clients faced - more typically happen in urban areas.
"In communities like ours it doesn't happen as often as it does in places like Sacramento," Miller said.
Pollock Pines resident Anthony Belli, a police chief in an Oregon community in the 1980s, said a militarization of law enforcement has occurred in recent decades.
Officers in military gear and equipment "is a sign of the times, but a sad one," Belli said.
Of the February Diamond Springs incident, Belli said "It is law enforcement's responsibility when they do have a warrant to make certain the people inside the residence know that they're dealing with law enforcement."
He said it may have been that "the last, best information was that this guy was at this address."
"They didn't have anything more current," Belli said.
Following the Feb. 25 incident Sheriff Neves required that the primary contact officer in any enforcement effort involving the department be dressed in a readily identified law enforcement uniform.
Staffing issues spurred by retirements and extended medical leaves within Sheriff's Department's had led to SED members being temporarily reassigned back into patrol, Neves said this week. The enforcement detail will resume as soon as staffing levels allow, the sheriff said.
"We're very pleased overall with the success that the SED program has brought to the department," Neves said.
A little good ol' police work might have clarified a few things - like surveillance, digging through the trash, checking DMV on the cars, etc. 
