Another Isolated Incident
The suit filed by Carl Keane and his girlfriend, Chieko Strange, of Mill Valley, names as defendants Petaluma Police Officer Paul Acconero and DEA agents Seth McMullen and John Silva.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, is meant to "redress one of the worst nightmares of any law-abiding citizen," the couple said in their filing.
The three defendants were among a group of DEA agents who burst into the couple's home Dec. 19 using a search warrant signed by a Sonoma County judge for an investigation of a cross-country shipment of six pounds of marijuana.
No drugs, drug residue, money or weapons were found during the search of Keane's house.
Strange, 63, said in the suit that a DEA agent held her down with a boot on her head as agents stormed through the house yelling, "Where are your weapons?" and "You know why we're here."
It's also important to keep a broader perspective when reviewing these botched raids: Even if they'd had the right house, is stopping six pounds of marijuana from entering the Petaluma illicit drug market really worth breaking into a home, throwing a 60-year-old woman to the ground, and stepping on her head with a police boot? Is it really that important that residents of Petaluma not have access to that particular six pounds of weed? In other words, that one of these raids goes wrong about once a week is only a small part of the problem (though it's an admittedly powerful rhetorical argument against them).
The bigger question is, why use such violent, confrontational tactics to prevent nonviolent crimes in the first place?