Colorado Cops apologize after raiding the wrong house

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mistakes were made

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They apologized. So that's moving in the right direction.

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Donald Scott In an early morning drug raid on October 2, 1992, 31 officers from five police agencies break down the door to the multimillion dollar home of Donald Scott. Frightened, Scott's wife screams, "Don't shoot me. Don't kill me." Hearing his wife's screams, Scott emerges from his bedroom holding a handgun, still groggy from a recent cataract operation. When Scott raises the gun in the direction of the police intruders, the raiding officers shoot him dead.

Despite assurances from the L.A. Sheriff's Department that Scott was farming more than 4,000 marijuana plants on his property, thorough search of Scott's property fails to yield any contraband. In fact, Scott's friends would later say he was adamantly opposed to illicit drugs.

Though Scott's grand Malibu ranch is in Ventura County, California, no Ventura police agency was represented among the five police agencies (the L.A. Sheriff's office, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Border Patrol, the National Guard and the National Park Service) that conducted the raid.

A blistering subsequent investigation by Ventura County district attorney Michael Bradbury suggests why. Bradbury found gross misstatements of fact, omissions, and outright falsehoods in the application for a search warrant issued by the L.A. sheriff's department. He found that the department had conducted numerous investigations of the ranch, including flyovers and firsthand visits, which found no evidence of marijuana cultivation.

Finally, during a low-level flyover one DEA agent suggested to the sheriff's department that he had spotted some plants beneath tree cover that might be marijuana -- but stipulated that his observation ought not be the basis of a search warrant. On that evidence, the L.A. sheriff's department obtained its warrant.

Bradbury concluded that, confirming Donald Scott's fears, the L.A. sheriff's department conducted its raid for the purpose of seizing Donald Scott's property through drug asset forfeiture laws.

Under federal law, the department would have been able divvy up proceeds from the $2.5 million ranch with the four other agencies joining in the investigation. Bradbury found documents in which the investigating agencies had expressed desire for Scott's land on various "wish lists," and one notation in which sheriff's department officials had taken note of the recent sale value of one parcel of Scott's land.

According to an L.A. deputy district attorney at the time, two of the agents conducting the raid posed for a triumphant photograph after Scott was shot and killed. In January 2000, the L.A. Sheriff's Department settled with Scott's family for $5 million, though the terms of the settlement admitted no wrongdoing. In fact, officers from the department who conducted the raid have insisted from the beginning that both the raid and the shooting of Scott were justified, despite the absence of any illegal substances.

L.A. Sheriff's Department Captain Larry Waldie told the Los Angeles Times, "I do not believe it was an illegal raid in any way, shape or form." Five years after the raid, Garry Spencer, the officer who both led the raid and who killed Scott told the same paper, "I don't consider it botched. I wouldn't call it botched because that would say that it was a mistake to have gone there in the first place, and I don't believe that."

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