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.