SPOKANE, WA — In a mistake more than slightly reminiscent of those regularly experienced as part of the nation’s endless “War on Drugs,” a 67-year-old man and his wife found their home stormed by at least a half dozen Spokane County police determined to “get some porn.”Instead, after the officers snapped photos of the couple’s home, Detective Timothy D. Hines urged his sheriff’s on by shouting, “Now, let’s go inside and get some porn!” according to neighbors who witnessed the incident.
The armed and dangerous officers then burst through the front door and, as the couple describes it, “ripped” their “whole house apart,” looking for non-existent evidence of a crime. Drawers were dumped onto the floor, wallet and checkbooks were examined, computers were seized, along with CDs, floppy disks, and VHS tapes including copies of The Lion King and Snow White, which were stored within a bedroom used when the couple’s granddaughter visits.
What were they looking for?
Robert M. Sherman, a 42-year-old man who had made at least 30 obscene phone calls to female students of Whitworth College — and who was arrested on October 5th, more than a week after the couples’ home had mistakenly been ransacked.
Sheriff Ozzie D. Knezovich apologized yesterday for the mistake, which resulted when Hines wrote down the wrong telephone number and obtained a search warrant for the wrong home, miles from Sherman’s actual location.
The couple has not accepted Knezovich’s apology, understandably miffed by the department’s refusal to clean up the mess it made and unimpressed by the humiliation that they experienced in front of their neighbors, including a female officer who “giggled” when comments were made about the husband and an argument between Hines and the wife, when she denied that the voice speaking “filthy stuff” on the recording was her husband. The husband also contends that Hines told him media coverage could be avoided if he’d simply confess to the crime he insisted he had not committed.
“What would you do if somebody came to your door and ripped your whole house apart, turned everything upside down and said you were a porno freak,” the man asked?
In his case, what he did was contact an attorney.
The couple, who have asked that their identity be kept confidential, have not decided whether they will sue or not, but the husband assures the police department that is “not going to be treated like this and dragged around.”
Knezovich plans to adopt a more stringent policy concerning fact checking in search warrants, but says Hines is unlikely to be disciplined for his mistake and its resulting mayhem. If the homeowner is correct that the officers were rude, as claimed, it is possible that they could receive verbal or written reprimands for unprofessional conduct.
After his arrest, Sherman explained that he had begun calling coeds when phone sex lines became too expensive for his budget.
