Riverside County, CA — Even in states with legal marijuana, law enforcement's addiction to the drug war still lingers like a dark cloud over over the land of the ostensibly free. Even in California, who has paved the way in legalization of cannabis, police officers still violently, and with extreme prejudice, lay waste to the rights of innocent people who dare grow, use, or sell this most beneficial plant.
Because of their addiction to the war on drugs, cops in Riverside County have just cost the taxpayers of their town $136,000. The money was paid to Chen-Chen Hwang, 67, and her husband, Jiun-Tsong Wu, 75, to settle a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging that their two homes were broken into by armed agents of the state and ransacked as officers looked for non-existent marijuana plants.
According to Alex Coolman, the attorney who filed the suit on behalf of the elderly couple, police were monitoring power bills of town residents and used the low amount of the couple's bill as reason to believe they were growing marijuana.
“This was a very strange and frightening incident,” Hwang said in a release from Coolman's office. “We did nothing to deserve this, and it made us feel unsafe in our own homes.”
The raid unfolded on August 5, 2021 and caused thousands in damage to the couple's home.
Apparently police in Riverside County monitor power consumption and when they see low power usage, they automatically assume that people are stealing power to grow marijuana.
“The deputies believed the defendants were stealing power to grow marijuana because their power consumption was low, and they said as much,” Coolman told the Press-Enterprise.
But the couple was not growing marijuana and their power consumption was low because they used solar power and were "thrifty," according to Coolman.
According to the lawsuit, on on August 5, 2021, a SWAT team, using a battering ram, broke down the door to the couple's home in their quiet subdivision. Nobody was home and for several hours, deputies ransacked the home, destroying their property in the futile search for a plant — which they never found.
After not finding anything at this house, deputies then turned their attention to the couple's second home — which couldn't have possibly used power from their other address but was targeted nonetheless — and raided it too. According to the lawsuit, however, they had no warrant for the second and also entirely...
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3 comments:
The settlement is far too low. Add 3 zeros at least. And an eight figure amount for punitive.
Gun owners in CA have lauded the Sheriff of Riverside County for being more friendly to the 2A than his predecessor. That seems meaningless when juxtaposed to this event.
Given that the illustrious faggot, Gavin Newsom, passed legislation to allow Edison to raise electric rates by 60%, the word "thrifty" was the wrong word. People here CAN'T AFFORD to turn the lights on!
...As for the amount of the settlement, it's too bad that these people couldn't afford a better lawyer! An example needed to be set here! That amount was CHICKEN FEED!
Remember if they found drugs the property could be forfeit. There has been cases where the Sheriff's Office researched property values, and raided the highest. The raid on Donald Scott's home is an example of LEO shooting the home owner in a no knock raid. Claimed to be searching for weed, found the owners medication, no weed. Home owners still dead, unable to accept apologies afterwards.
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