Former BART police officer Johannes Mehserle will likely serve seven months in prison for killing Oscar Grant III a judge declared Friday as he dismissed a key but confusing jury verdict that could have landed the 28-year-old in prison for longer.

In making his decision, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert Perry acknowledged that his sentence would anger Grant's family and possibly the Bay Area but said "I did the best I could with this case."

Perry said the evidence presented during the trial was "simply overwhelming" in favor of Mehserle's claim that he made a mistake in shooting Grant by confusing his gun for his Taser and that the prosecution's various examples which it argued pointed toward a fabricated story were "insufficient."

Hello everyone- we've had a very trying month and it only seems to be getting worse. Throwaway account for very, VERY obvious reasons. I've changed a few non-essential details in order to try to avoid this being found by the wrong people.

Background:

My parents live in a small-ish town in California. No, I will not be more specific about their location/hometown.

My father is a politically-minded gentleman, and runs a small-time political blogging site that you are almost certainly not familiar with.

Approximately one month ago, my parents received a knock on their door during the middle of the night. When my Father (about 60 years old) answered the door, a plainclothes officer was there with a badge and started asking questions. My father told the officer he could not see him properly, and was going to turn on the porch light and grab his glass. As he turned around to grab them (they were on a table behind him) the officers opened the screen door (which was unlocked; the main door to the house had been deadbolted) and stormed into the house, guns (and at least two of the officers with stunguns) drawn. They ripped my mother and cousin (who was staying with them at the time) out of their beds and held them, on the ground, with (stun)guns pointed at them for over 20 minutes. During this time, my father asked multiple times to see a warrant which was never produced by the officers upon request. In addition, officers did not answer questions, read miranda rights, or anything of the sort (so far as any of my family could remember).

After searching the house (and causing in surplus of $10,000 in damages to property) an officer produced the warrant, which revealed they were in the wrong house, and were trying to serve a warrant on the house next door!

Details in this next bit get fuzzy (because my parents and cousin disagree on bits about what happened next), but the officers left, and during the commotion the man next door was able to escape the officers. In addition, my father was arrested for "Resisting Arrest" and released later that night.

Fast Forward approximately one week. My parents consulted a few lawyers and are pending suing the everliving fuck out of the police department (the specifics of the suit I will not talk about, again for privacy/not getting this traced back to them reasons). They have also filed complaints with the city police department about the incident, and they are "taking the matter very seriously." (read: doing absolutely nothing we can verify). Since that night, my parents have noticed an increase in the number of police around their cul-du-sac, often parked directly in front of their home. They have also been pulled over by officers in the area for a number of "traffic violations", and at least one of these times it was by an officer involved in the raid.

My parents are at their wit's end, and my cousin has moved out of their home temporarily, and is living with friends while she continues going to classes/trying to finish out the academic semester. That said, her grades have gone from nearly 100% in her classes and tanked significantly. She is seeing one of her university's psychologists on a regular basis, and from talking with her and just seeing her you can tell that she's been horribly affected by the incident.

So, what the fuck do they do now? The legal route is only leading to harassment by the police, and the administrative review of the officers seems to be netting no results. My parents are panicked, my dad is having heartburn and nerve problems almost certainly caused by the incident, and the lawyers can't seem to get anything taken care of.

I know it's a bit of a long and depressing story, but I want to thank you for reading. If you have any advice for my family (or me, for that matter) I'd be eternally grateful.

tl;dr: Officers invade my parents home while trying to serve a warrant on their neighbors home. Come in guns drawn and essentially hold them hostage, refuse to show warrant. After filing complaints with the department, family is being harassed. Help!

Edit 1: Formatting and spelling. Oh god, lots of spelling.

Edit 2: as per a few of the PMs I've received, I do not live with my family, and actually live most of the way across the country, so I do not have immediate physical access to my family's notes, ect. I've been back home 3 times since this has taken place, and that's how I've seen the physical effects on my family/ect.

Edit 3: I'm heading to bed for the night, but I'll be back on tomorrow at various times of the day. Thanks for the advice so far!

Edit 4: Oh my, lots of replies. I'm going to be flying back to (home) home for a good portion of the day, so I'll try to get to as many of you before taking off and once I'm home as well. Thank you all so much for your words and support!

Edit 5: I just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you for your time and replies that you've made here. I've gone ahead and shown the post to my parents, and we'll be taking some of the advice into effect immediately.

My parents have spoken with the chief of police for the city, and they've gotten the officers to stop parking in front of the house. According to the chief, they were "on lookout for the suspect" from next door. While I'm inclined to think that's bullshit, the important bit is that they've stopped keeping a unit there 24/7.

Anyway, I've encouraged them to seek out some media attention, and also suggested they talk to the ACLU about what can and should be done at this point. It looks like our current lawyer is utter crap (thank you guys for pointing this out) so we'll be seeking a new one pretty quickly here.

If anything major comes about I'll post another thread.

Thank you all once again.

Oh, and about the people calling troll on me... herpers gonna derp. Not much you can do about them, except ignore them.

The 68-year-old grandfather of 12 who was killed yesterday by a Framingham police SWAT team in an early-morning drug raid was a retired MBTA worker described by shocked neighbors as the “nicest guy in the world.”

Eurie Stamps was not the target of the search warrant, according to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, and his death at the hands of police is under investigation.

Authorities said Stamps lived at the house with a woman whose son and another man were arrested in the raid on drug charges…

Police wouldn’t say whether the shooting was justified. No weapons were recovered from the home, prosecutors said, and the suspects do not face weapons charges.

After Stamps was shot, police called an ambulance and gave him first aid, authorities said.

Joseph Bush fan, 20, the son of Stamps’ companion, Norma Bushfan, was arrested outside the house as police initiated the raid. Bushfan allegedly was carrying eight baggies of crack and $400 in cash. Devon Talbert, 20, was arrested in a rear bedroom.

At 12:30 a.m. on Wednesday, January 5, the Framingham Police SWAT Team served a search warrant at 26 Fountain St. in Framingham. During the service of the search warrant Mr. Eurie Stamps was tragically and fatally struck by a bullet which was discharged from a SWAT officer’s rifle. Despite immediate intervention by tactical medics, he died at the scene.

The officer involved has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the District Attorney’s Office’s independent investigation into the justifiability of the shooting. Our condolences are with Mr. Stamp’s family for the heartbreak they are understandably enduring and we will await the findings of the investigation before taking any additional administrative action.

According to the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, the investigation will take three to four weeks and the identity of the Framingham officer who shot Stamps will not be released until the investigation is complete.

The fatal shooting of an innocent 68-year-old man by Framingham police reignited debate among law enforcement experts yesterday over the role of heavily armed, specialized units for routine drug busts.

“Dynamic entry — there’s a time and place for that, but in nine times of out of 10, it’s not a hostage-type situation,” said John Gnagey, executive director of National Tactical Officers Association, which trains SWAT teams around the country. “There are other things that you can do.”

Eurie Stamps was shot to death inside a home in Framingham on Tuesday after police arrested two 20-year-old unarmed men on drug charges. A Framingham SWAT team member yesterday was placed on administrative leave in connection with the shooting, the department said.

The National Tactical Officers Association advocates moving away from using “no-knock” tactics during low-level drug busts that are unlikely to evolve into complex tactical situations, Gnagey said.

In a statement about the shooting, Framingham police said the department will await the findings of an investigation by the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office before taking any additional administrative action.

The Stamps incident is hardly the first SWAT raid to have resulted in a death.

In May, a 7-year-old girl was shot when Detroit police stormed the wrong house looking for a murder suspect. In 2006, an 88-year-old Atlanta woman was killed after she fired shots at police busting into her home, an incident that prompted an investigation into the use of “no-knock” warrants. In Boston in 1994, a 75-year-old minister died from a heart attack 45 minutes after police mistakenly raided his home looking for drugs.

“SWAT teams were originally conceived to respond to an already violent situation,” said Radley Balko, author of “Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Raids in America” and a senior editor at libertarian Reason magazine. “The problem of using them to serve these warrants for nonviolent crimes is that you are creating violence where none existed before.”

First introduced in Los Angeles after the Watt Riots, the use of SWAT teams has risen dramatically since 1980, from 3,000 SWAT deployments per year to more than 50,000 now — the vast majority used during drug arrests, Balko said.

“We’re deploying an extraordinary level of resources to chase down and ferret out low-level crack cocaine dealers,” said Boston University professor of criminal justice Thomas Nolan, a former Boston police lieutenant. “I think it’s a fair question to ask law enforcement: Are the resources being devoted to these drug investigations worth the cost?”

A village resident said that police conducting drug raids early this morning targeted the wrong house where they roused his family out bed, pointed a machine gun at his 13-year-old daughter and threatened to shoot their poodle.

The raids were conducted by the Spring Valley police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

(...)

David McKay said he, his wife, 13-year-old daughter and his brother-in-law were sleeping at 5:30 a.m. when they heard banging on the door of their townhouse at 36 Sharon Drive. When they went to open the door, at least 10 police officers forced their way into the home, he said.

"Their guns were drawn, they were screaming 'Where's Michael, Where's Michael,' " McKay recounted hours later in a telephone interview from Nyack Hospital, where he took his terrified daughter for treatment after she had an asthma attack and fainted following the ordeal.

McKay said he was still groggy from sleep but tried to explain that there was no one named Michael in the house.

"They pulled me outside in the freezing cold in my underwear, manhandle my wife, point a gun at my daughter and they won't even tell me what they are doing in my house," said McKay. "It was terrifying and humiliating beyond belief."

(...)

He said he recognized some of the Spring Valley officers from his work in the community.

Spring Valley police declined this morning to address McKay's accusations. They referred all questions to the DEA.

Mulvey said she was unaware of the incident.

(...)

McKay said the officers forced his wife, Jamie, and daughter out of their beds. The family's dogs were barking and police threatened to shoot them, McKay said.

McKay said he was uncertain how long the police were in his home at 36 Sharon Drive, but at one point he heard them discussing a nearby residence. When he took the dogs out for a walk a short time later, he saw police in front of that home, located on the same side of the street.

When the police were preparing to leave, McKay and his bewildered family asked them again what they were doing and why they entered the house.

"They wouldn't say," he recalled. "All they would say was 'You'll read about it in the paper tomorrow.' "

...By impounding the returns, any information collected during the drug and shooting investigation remains in the court clerk's office and can't be examined by the public or press.

Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone's office yesterday released no new information about Wednesday's fatal shooting of Eurie Stamps Sr....

"I didn't hear anyone say 'police' or anything, I thought we were being robbed," said Jake Kostman, a Rutgers University student.

Two Rutgers roommates say they were sleeping in the early morning hours of December 10th and had no idea who was barging into the basement room they share in an off-campus house in New Brunswick.

"I got hit in the face; I got hit in the ribs. That's basically what happened," said Kareem Najjar, a Rutgers University student. "I remember basically waking up to being hit, on the side of my face, on my back I got kicked a couple of times and stepped on," Kostman said.

Pictures show boot marks left on Kostman's back. "One person was standing on my back another was standing on my head," Najjar said. "It's really scary, really intimidating when there are people just yelling at your and hitting you, you don't believe that it's something that cops would do," Kostman said.

The roommates say it wasn't until they were handcuffed that they were told this was a raid by New Brunswick Police who apparently had a warrant for someone else in the house.

"You were never arrested?" Eyewitness News reporter Sarah Wallace asked. "No, and we asked why we were being arrested and they said, 'you're not being arrested you are being detained'," Najjar said.

Once they were finally released, they say the cops had ransacked their room, and left them sitting for nearly two hours in their underwear in the cold. Kostman claims his handcuffs were so tight and on for so long, he now has permanent nerve damage in his thumb. "I don't think anyone should ever be allowed to just come into your house and just beat the crap out of you," Kostman said.

The SFPD and DEA found no piles of marijuana money at 243 Diamond St., one of six addresses raided simultaneously in San Francisco that morning. Instead, they found Clark Freshman, who rents the penthouse at the two-unit building. Freshman, [b]a UC Hastings law professor and the main consultant to the television show Lie to Me, was put into handcuffs while in his bathrobe as agents searched, despite Freshman's insistence that they had the wrong place and were breaking the law…

Soon they may be called defendants in a lawsuit. A furious Freshman has pledged to sue the DEA and the SFPD for unlawful search and seizure of his home…

[Officer] Biggs describes 243 Diamond as a "two-story, one-unit" building in the warrant. There's no mention of Freshman or Larizadeh's son-in-law or seven-months pregnant daughter who were detained in the downstairs unit that morning. But property records — and a quick visual scan of the property — reveal it to be a three-story, two-unit building. That mistake alone may be enough to invalidate the search warrant.

(...)

"I've been on the fence for years about the legalization of drugs ... and now I'm a victim of this crazy war on drugs," says Freshman, who pledged to sue until "I see [the agents'] houses sold at auction and their kids' college tuitions taken away from them. There will not be a better litigated case this century."

When Gary Adams heard a series of "booms" early Thursday, he figured one of the kids had left the TV on overnight. He had no idea, he said Friday, that law enforcement agents were about to flood his Bellevue house, looking for an accused member of the Manchester OGs gang who once lived there.

A few clock ticks later, agents broke open all three doors into his Orchard Avenue home, shattering glass. Then some 15 Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and state and local police entered his home.

"When I hit that bend and turned," he said, pointing toward the staircase that lands near his front door, "there was a laser sight on my head."

An hour later the agents left, without their suspect, Sondra Hunter, who remained at large. An FBI agent apologized and promised the bureau would pay for the damaged doors, he said....

The entry to Mr. Adams' house, though, raises the question: Absent a search warrant, when can law enforcement knock in a door?

"If they have an arrest warrant for John Doe ... that is not authority to go into [Doe's] friend's house," said David Harris, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, and a specialist in search and seizure. "Otherwise, a warrant for anyone could allow you to go anywhere that person could be."

"In this day and age, police are given quite a bit of leeway," said Alexander H. Lindsay Jr., a defense attorney and former federal prosecutor. "Whenever law enforcement is executing a warrant, the safety of the officers in question is always a primary consideration." (...)

A stumbling Framingham SWAT officer accidentally fired his rifle and shot a beloved grandpa to death as he lay face-down on the floor of his own home, authorities admitted yesterday, sparking incredulous outrage by the 68-year-old retiree’s family.

(...)

Officer Paul Duncan, who fired the fatal shot, did so after he tripped during a search of Stamps’ home, according to a report issued yesterday by Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone’s office. Duncan will not face charges.

“The actions of Officer Duncan do not rise to the level of criminal conduct, and the shooting death of Eurie Stamps was an accident,” Leone’s office said.

On Jan. 5, police were searching for Stamps’ stepson, Joseph Bushfan, when they served a warrant on Stamps’ home. Bushfan was arrested outside the home, allegedly carrying crack cocaine and money.

Officers then hit the home, throwing a stun grenade and ordering everyone inside to put their hands up and lie on the floor, the report states. Stamps, a grandfather of 12, had obeyed and was lying in the hallway when Duncan attempted to cuff and frisk him.

“As he stepped to his left, (Duncan) lost his balance and began to fall over backwards,” the report states. “Officer Duncan realized that his right foot was off the floor and the tactical equipment that he was wearing was making his movements very awkward. While falling, Officer Duncan removed his left hand from his rifle, which was pointing down towards the ground and put his left arm out to try and catch himself. As he did so, he heard a shot.” (...)

An 86-year-old D.C. man got a surprise visit earlier this month. Robert Smith heard someone banging on his apartment door on Randolph Street on the evening of March 4. But before he could unlock it, a group of D.C. Police officers battered the door down and knocked Smith onto the floor.

Smith said officers quickly realized they had the wrong apartment and called for an ambulance. Doctors treated Smith for contusions to his head and back.

"There's a half million people in this city, so why did they have to pick on me?" Smith told FOX 5.

The retired federal government worker has lived alone in the same apartment for more than 30 years and said police never offered an apology for the mistaken raid.

FOX 5 viewed the search warrant which stated police were looking for marijuana, drug paraphernalia and anything related to drug trafficking.

The Director of Communications for the Metropolitan Police Department, Gwendolyn Crump, e-mailed FOX 5 saying that "The Metropolitan Police Department is investigating this matter."

A judge has ordered Ecorse to pay $215,000 to a couple who sued the city, its retired police chief and two officers in connection with a drug raid executed at the wrong house.

The Detroit News says U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds ordered the cash-strapped city about 10 miles south-southwest of Detroit to pay Michael and Tammy Phelps as part of a judgment on Tuesday.

The couple accused the city, former Police Chief Jerry Copeland and others of executing a search warrant on the wrong house in September 2008. They say the warrant was for the home next door.

The lawsuit says officers threw the couple to the floor, pushed Michael Phelps' head and face with the barrel of a gun and handcuffed his wife.

When Menlo Park police officers busted into an East Palo Alto home and pointed a firearm at a two-year old girl in November, they had the wrong house, say the two homeowners, who are filing a $500,000 claim against both cities.

The cops did have a search warrant for a home on Garden Street on Nov. 2, 2010, but it wasn’t for the home of Carlos Nava and Melissa Verduzco, whose door cops broke down at 6:45 a.m. that day, reported the Palo Alto Daily News.

The East Palo Alto City Council rejected the claim on an unanimous vote. The Menlo Park City Council has yet to consider the case.

According to the claims, “A sergeant Cowans slammed (Nava’s) face to the ground and kneed him in the back of the head. Later, this officer punched (Nava) about the body,” the newspaper reported.

Other officers entered Verduzco’s room and “pointed laser-sighted firearms” at Verduzco and her 2-year-old daughter, the claims state.

It’s unclear which house cops intended to hit and what they were searching for. Menlo Park cops did not comment on the story, according to the newspaper.

A Bellevue man whose home was searched in an FBI-led drug raid — apparently in an effort to find someone who had moved away — filed a lawsuit today alleging constitutional violations.

Gary Adams and his family were distressed, embarrassed and humiliated when agents “battered down the door to his home and armed with assault rifles stormed into his house March 3 in a misguided attempt to serve an arrest warrant on a person who was not related to or who had ever resided with” them, according to a press release by Downtown attorney Timothy P. O’Brien, representing the family. “The lawsuit contends that law-abiding citizens’ constitutional rights are not, cannot and should not ever be ‘collateral damage’ in the government’s war on drugs.” (...)

Agents were searching for Sondra Hunter, one of 29 people charged that day with being members of the Manchester OGs drug gang. Ms. Hunter had lived at the address currently rented by the Adams family, but left months before they moved in.

The agents had an arrest warrant for Ms. Hunter, but not a search warrant for the premises.

A case of mistaken identity nearly roped a Struthers family into one of the largest drug sweeps in the area this year.

Doreen Fox of Lewis Street, Struthers, was home with her 30-year-old son Wednesday morning preparing to leave for a doctor’s appointment when she noticed movement outside the home. She opened the front door to a flood of local and federal police.

“They [police] were in my front yard, my rear yard; they had my house surrounded. When I opened the door to see what was going on, there was an officer with a gun out not far from my stomach,” she said. “I am still shaking.”

Officers informed Doreen they were looking for her 24-year-old son, David Fox, in connection with a large-scale heroin operation.

The problem is David Fox, at least the David Fox from Lewis Street, is a third-year law student in Cincinnati and working for a government agency in Columbus during the summer.

Local, state and federal agents did fan out across the area Wednesday in search of 62 people wanted in a major heroin ring that has operated around the Youngstown area for several years.

By the end of the day, 32 people had been taken into custody — 16 on state charges and 16 facing federal charges. Police and federal agents still are searching for the remaining 30 suspected drug dealers.

Doreen Fox said she had to make it clear to officers standing at her door that her son, David Fox, is not one of those drug dealers. Her other son called David in Columbus to inform him, and David thought his older brother was joking.

David Fox said he was stunned to find this was no joke; police were actually looking to arrest him for illegal drug sales — even going through the family garden in search of illegal substances.

“They were kind of just rummaging around. Then they went into the garden and were kind of just sniffing around. We are growing parsley, basil and other stuff, but they were really interested in the basil,” she said.

Doreen said the officers had a current picture of her son and did not at first believe there was a case of mistaken identity. She said after much discussion, the officers realized the mistake and were apologetic to the family. The police were at the house about 15 minutes and at no point were rude or disrespectful, she added.

Doreen still wants to know how such a mis- take could happen. She is grateful her son was not home at the time of the incident because she fears he would have been taken into custody without time to explain.

Bob Balzano, resident agent with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, acknowledged that a mistake in the identity of one suspected drug dealer led police to the Fox household, but he stressed that officers did not forcefully enter or search the home. He confirmed officers apologized to the family for the mistake.

“The two men showed the same name and some other particulars, but the agents did what they were supposed to do — asking questions, following up and then moving on,” Balzano said.

Balzano said officers did catch up with the wanted David Fox. The Mahoning County Sheriff’s Department website does show a David Fox currently in the county jail.

The federal indictment for which the series of raids took place centers on the distribution network of a group of dealers mainly on the East Side of Youngstown.

According to the federal indictment, Luis Angel Martinez, 33, of Youngstown would obtain heroin from sources in Youngstown, New York City and Buffalo, N.Y., for distribution in Youngstown. The indictment says Martinez would then distribute the drugs to lower-level dealers for distribution in the area.

The indictment says the lower-level dealers also would take turns staffing a cellphone used by Martinez for drug distribution.

David Fox does not appear in the federal indictment, but there are 37 people facing state charges and their names have not yet been released. Those 37 people are facing charges ranging from possession of drugs to trafficking in heroin.

A federal grand jury indicted three members of the KCK SWAT team this week, sources tell KCTV5.

The indictments, which include conspiracy charges, won't be unsealed before next week, the sources say.

The three were part of an investigation into whether money and property were taken from a family during a raid. A sting operation was set up by the FBI after a resident complained about the officers' conduct.

Surveillance cameras were planted throughout the home and furniture was installed in the vacant house to convince officers that they were serving an actual warrant.

"I think we are sick. The reaction yesterday was sick to our stomach," said Police Chief Rick Armstrong

The three officers had been placed on unpaid leave after the January raid and they remain on unpaid leave after the indictments were handed down by the federal grand jury in Wichita.

Ten officers initially were detained in early January. Three have returned to work while four remain on paid leave....

Orange County Sheriff's Office officials said at least one person was killed in a deputy-involved shooting in Pine Hills Friday evening.

OCSO's Susan Soto said the shooting took place in the 5900 block of Gamble Street and Wolf Road, just east of Silver Star Road, at about 6:30 p.m.

Investigators said a deputy opened fire and killed a man who lunged at eight to 10 officers who were serving a warrant for the fugitive's arrest.

The felony squad moved in to serve a warrant, but officers said but they went to the wrong house and barged in on a neighbor who says deputies ransacked his house.

Once deputies realized they had the wrong address, they entered the correct residence on Gamble Street where the man was visiting an acquaintance, investigators said....

Residents in a Cedar Rapids home woke up to a SWAT team. Police in SWAT gear entered the home on 5th AVE SE, to search the home for narcotics.

Police said that there were no drugs inside the house but there was evidence of drug use. 23-year-old Jose Perry was cited for a disorderly house. Perry signed a promise to appear in court and was not taken to jail.

Memphis Police have raided the wrong house, slightly injuring a mentally disabled resident.

Memphis Police Director Toney Armstrong said officers went to the wrong address to make a drug raid and will be disciplined.

Neighbors told WMC-TV on Wednesday they watched undercover police officers break down the door of the home and rush in. The disabled man and his mother were inside.

Armstrong said such mistakes are rare, but acknowledged they have occurred before in the city. He said he’s thankful no one was seriously injured or killed. Armstrong said police execute a lot of search warrants and “accidents happen.”

The chief apologized to the homeowner and said the city will pay for damages.

An immigrant family claimed on Monday that immigration agents roughed up their grandmother during a raid in Norco.

The family said dozens of immigration agents swarmed their Norco home around 3:30 p.m. 2 weeks ago.

Josephina Martinez said her 46 year-old mother-in-law sustained bruises when gun-toting agents threw her to the ground as they searched for drugs and guns.

“These officers should have realized that these 5 people were women and children and needed to treat them as such," said Jorge Mario Cabrera, spokesperson for the Coalition for Humane Immigration Rights. "Instead they treated them like criminals.”

Cabrera said a 2 year-old girl and a 16 year-old boy were also in the house at the time, and added that it appears that agents raided the wrong house.

In a statement, immigration officials confirmed that agents did raid the house during a drug trafficking investigation and detained 4 people for deportation. Five others face immigration interviews.

Agents did not arrest any of them on drug charges.

Officials said they are reviewing the agents’ conduct during the raid.

Hey, San Luis Obispo County. You’re about to buy 43 dead marijuana plants. Rather than go to trial in federal court and fight a civil rights lawsuit brought by Los Osos resident Richard Steenken, the county and Sheriff’s Department agreed to settle the case for $25,000, roughly the cash value of Steenken’s marijuana plants, which were seized in a botched drug raid on a medical marijuana card holder.

“I guess it could have been more,” Steenken said of the settlement. “But it’s a long time coming.”

Steenken, a 45-year-old addiction specialist, was arrested on Oct. 15, 2008, and two days later charged with a felony for cultivating marijuana and possessing concentrated cannabis (among other charges). With a $40,000 bail set, Steenken opted to stay in jail, where he remained until Nov. 3 when the District Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges. The judge abided, Steenken was released, and he then fought to have his property returned; it eventually was, after a court order. By the time Steenken reclaimed his property, his 43 plants—which he was allowed to cultivate under state law as a medical marijuana patient—had died.

“Basically they told us, ‘We’re going to enforce federal law,’” said Steenken’s attorney, Dana Rosenburg, who specializes in police misconduct cases. “So they’re using state money … to enforce federal law, and that’s unconstitutional.”

Steenken came home in the middle of the raid and found armed deputies at his home. They raided the home of his then-girlfriend three hours later.

ALAMEDA (CBS 5/KCBS) – Some new parents got an unexpected scare Wednesday morning when they awoke to a team of armed Federal Bureau of Investigation agents attempting to raid their home.

CBS News correspondent Priya David and her husband Alex Clemens were at their home with their newborn child on Lina Avenue when they heard a banging on the door just after 7 a.m.

“Our first thought was the neighborhood is on fire,” resident Alex Clemens said. “I see what turns out to be eight uniformed, armored, armed officers – four of which are pointing guns through the window at my face.”

Just as officers were about to cuff Clemens he warned them that they had the wrong guy.

“They yelled at me ‘Is anyone else in the house,’” Clemens recalled. “I did say ‘yes, my wife is a CBS News correspondent. She’s upstairs nursing our infant baby.’ That seemed to de-escalate things a little bit.”

”They said, ‘stand to the side,’ but then realized, I think, very quickly that they had the wrong home,” said David. “We told them that we thought they were looking for the people who lived here about three months ago, who had sold us the house and then moved across the street.”

The search warrant specifically lists marijuana, items associated with the cultivation and sale of the drug, along with firearms as the focus of the investigation.

David said the agents were very apologetic about the mistake.

”They were thankful, from our understanding, that we were able to tell them where the people they were looking for had gone,” said David.

Agents did enter the home across the street after getting a second search warrant, arresting one person in connection with the case.

A group of Chicago police officers armed with weapons and a warrant violated the Constitution and may face sanctions for barging into the wrong house and threatening to shoot a mother and her kids, a federal judge ruled.

On June 7, 2009, Officer Billy Gonzales applied for a warrant to search the first floor of 3811 West Diversey Ave., based on the tip that it was a Chicago crack house. The application was granted.

The next day, the police executed their search at 3815 West Diversey, the building next door to 3811. The officers approached the building through the alley in the rear and broke down the back door with a sledgehammer. Two officers stayed outside to watch the building entrance.

Startled by the noise, Nancy Simental walked upstairs from her basement apartment with her two children. She claimed to find police pointed their guns at her and saying, “Don’t move or I’ll shoot you.” When she asked the police to put their guns away because children were present, a policeman repeated that he would shoot Simental and another pointed a gun at the children.

Officers also walked in on first-floor resident Francisca Nava as she was in the bathroom and told her not to move. The court said officers also pointed guns at Guadalupe Simental and Cesar Leon.

Sometime after the police entered the building, one of the officers stationed outside informed the team leader that the address on the front door did not match the warrant. All the officers then exited the building, leaving furniture overturned and the residents’ belongings strewn across the floor...

Not only did defendants provide the court with innumerable improper and unsupported claims about Gonzales’s purported intentions regarding the warrant in question, defendants audaciously claimed that plaintiffs actually admitted that their home was the intended target of the warrant.”

“There is no evidence in this case that the warrant contained any errors,” he wrote. “Instead, the evidence shows that officers erred by searching the wrong house.”

Such a mistake might not be a constitutional violation if the officers made a reasonable effort to ensure they searched the correct building, the court explained.

But Hibbler said “the officers did not even make the effort to look at the prominently displayed address on the front of the house. The fact that they approached the house from the rear does not excuse the mistake.”

A Gibbs Road couple came home from work Thursday to find their home surrounded by Richland County sheriff’s deputies, their front door kicked in and their home ransacked.

Deputies were executing a search warrant at Wanda and Reginald Blanding’s home Thursday, after drug agents said a confidential informant “made a controlled purchase of crack cocaine from an unknown black male at the location,” according to the search warrant.

“He hit the door right here with it,” explained Wanda. “He still had the ram jack in his hand when I walked up.”

The informant told investigators the drug buy was made at 402 Gibbs Road. That’s where the sheriff’s drug unit staged its raid, looking into the one drug purchase the informant alleges happened there.

“They told me why they were here and I was like, ‘Okay, no one is supposed to be here. No one sells drugs out of this house,’” said Wanda.

Reginald is the only black male that lives at the home. He says when he arrived after the raid, deputies never searched him for drugs and never asked to look through his two cell phones even though the search warrant states that’s one of the things deputies were after.

Reginald says deputies told him they had his house under surveillance and know the drug buy went down.

The Blandings deny there ever was a drug buy at their home and think deputies got bad information from their informant.

Wanda says deputies emptied nearly every drawer in the home, searched through the attic and their daughter’s bedrooms.

Sheriff’s Capt. Chris Cowan says deputies made a purchase from the home and had every right to search it. “The drugs that we purchase were out of that home, we purchased from a family member of that home,” said Cowan. “We purchased the drugs out of that home.”

The only people who live there are the Blandings and their three high school-aged daughters.

When asked if enough due diligence was done in preparation for the raid, Cowan said the officers did everything they were supposed to do.

Meanwhile, the Blandings, who have been married for 20 years, say they both have clean records. Wanda has been a corrections employee for 21 years and Reginald has worked for Pepsi for just as long. Both say they have never gone near drugs and don’t allow them in their home.

“This is humiliation,” said Wanda. “I mean, come in, I can see the door, go through my room, clothes and everything all over the place. I mean, they went through every room in the house and just tore it up.” ...

The sheriff’s office says an apology is just not happening, and they’ll continue investigating this case until they make an arrest.

Matthew Spaulding says he and his family were terrorized at their own home by police who slammed his grandmother to the ground and shot his dogs– missing his head by less than an inch. “Told us to get on the ground. I got on the ground they put me in handcuffs,” Spaulding recalls, “Then they threw my dad to the ground and my dog Sadie was right here sniffing my head. She was next to me. They shot her. The blood got on my face and then she took off running behind me and they shot her like three more times.”

Tuesday morning, Greene County Sheriffs Deputies and Perry Police officers arrived at Spaulding’s Jefferson farmhouse to deliver a search warrant. The Spauldings say they were immediately ordered to the ground... even Matthew Spauldings’ disabled father, Chris. “My son hit the ground I hit the ground but I didn’t make it too fast so (the officer) jumped on the middle of my back, shoved his knee in and held a gun to the back of my head and handcuffed me. After they shot my first dog my mom come out”...

The Spauldings say after the first dog was killed, a second dog running away from the shots — and away from police— was also shot. “They weren’t barking. They weren’t attacking nobody.” Matthew Spaulding says, “They didn’t even give us a chance to put them in the kennel. We have a big kennel outside our house we could have put them in but they wouldn’t give us a chance.”

Perry Police are not commenting. And they’re refusing to turn over any paperwork or reports about the incident saying it’s part of an ongoing investigation. But we were able to get copies of the search warrants. One warrant shows police were looking for any kind of legal or illegal drugs. The other shows police were looking for a stolen X-Box video game system. No drugs and no stolen games were found–and no one was arrested.