California police file lawsuit against investigation into pot dispensary raid
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Version 0 of 1. Police officers in Santa Ana, California, have responded after clients of a marijuana dispensary filed a lawsuit accusing them of excessive and unconstitutional actions during a raid in May. A lawsuit filed last week in Orange County superior court by the officers and the Santa Ana Police Officers Association seeks to curb an internal investigation by the Santa Ana police department that was launched after the release of surveillance video of the 26 May raid on Sky High Holistic, a non-profit marijuana collective. The video shows police officers in Sky High playing darts and one officer making demeaning remarks about a woman with an amputated leg who is using a wheelchair. According to dispensary attorney Matthew Pappas, another officer can be seen eating what appears to be a pot-laced edible. The Santa Ana police department said in June it was investigating the actions shows in the video. The video has become the subject of a second lawsuit, which claims that it is an “illegal recording” and that the internal investigation is based on “evidence obtained as a result of an illegal eavesdropping against the officers involved in the service of the search warrant”. When the police officers entered the dispensary, they disabled all known recording devices in the shop. A hidden camera, placed in the dispensary in anticipation of police raids, picked up their subsequent actions. According to the lawsuit, the video is illegal because it violates California penal code 632, which says it is a crime to use an electronic device to record a private conversation. Corey Glave, the attorney representing the Santa Ana Police Officers Association and the officers, said in an email that the video was an “illegal recording that was edited in such a manner as to distort the truth”. “We believe the full, unedited version provides ample evidence that the officers never consumed any marijuana or ‘edibles’ as alleged in a number of media stories,” Glave said. “Furthermore, at least one officer voluntarily took and passed a drug test and the results were provided to the SAPD.” The lawsuit says the officers’ “communications were not in a public gathering or in any legislative, judicial, executive or administrative proceeding open to the public. They also did not reasonably expect that their communications may be overheard or recorded”. Glave said: “Because the officers were recorded unlawfully, no evidence obtained as a result of eavesdropping upon or recording the confidential communications can be or should be used in any judicial, administrative, legislative, or other proceedings. That is simply the law.” Glave declined to comment further. According to the lawsuit, the SAPD internal investigation is based “solely on the content of the edited illegal recordings”. The video was edited by Pappas, attorney for the dispensary, who submitted two versions of the footage – a subtitled highlight reel and what he said were unedited clips – to the Orange County Register and Santa Ana police. David Sklansky, co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center at Stanford Law School, said it was unclear if the penal code applied to the lawsuit. Sklansky said statute could apply if the conversation was confidential or if the conversation was recorded intentionally. “I’m not sure that there’s a case law on whether police officers can reasonably assume that when they conduct a search of a suspected crime scene, they can expect their conversation to be totally confidential,” Sklansky said. “In a place with a number of cameras, there’s a strong argument that it didn’t happen intentionally.” If the recordings fall under the penal code, they will be inadmissible in subsequent legal proceedings. Pappas has filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit after being accused of violating the penal code. Pappas told the Guardian the code was originally devised to prevent people from recording one another without permission. Regarding the lawsuit, he said the Santa Ana Police Officers Association had a “threshold basis to the idea that they didn’t consent to the recording”. “I don’t think it’s frivolous,” he said. |