Family Says Police Raid Was Wrong & Vile from Top to Bottom

By DIONNE CORDELL-WHITNEY
Courthouse News Service
Jul. 18, 2012

MINNEAPOLIS (CN) - After breaking down doors and shooting the family dog, a drug task force forced handcuffed children "to sit next to the carcass of their dead and bloody pet for more than an hour," and kept searching even after they knew they were raiding the wrong house, the family claims in Federal Court.

All nine occupants of the home, including three children, sued the officers, the state and Ramsey County in Federal Court.

Defendants include members of the Dakota County Drug Task Force, the St. Paul Police force, and a DEA agent.

Lead plaintiff Roberto Franco claims the task force raided the wrong house: that they should have gone next door.

Franco claims that Task Force Officer Shawn Scovill, who orchestrated the raid, "provided false information to a Minnesota District Court judge in order to obtain a search warrant. Defendant Scovill lied when he informed the District Court judge who reviewed Scovill's search warrant application that Scovill had obtained information from the confidential informant that the plaintiffs' home was the properly targeted house and that the address and the identity of the individuals who resided therein were the plaintiffs."

The complaint adds: The search warrant specifically named Rafael Ybarra as the intended target suspect. Plaintiff Roberto Franco was not named in the search warrant, nor was any person who lived in the raided house named in the search warrant.

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