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LAPD stooges wrongly raid medical imaging facility thinking that it was a front for illegal grow operation.

CannaRed

Cannabinerd
LAPD raid goes from bad to farce after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine
By Lester Black,
Cannabis editor
Sep 24, 2024

An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department found out the hard way that you can’t take metal near an MRI machine after their rifle flew out of their hands and became attached to the machine during a pot raid gone bad, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week.

The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023 The lawsuit was first reported on by Law360.com.

The owners of NoHo Diagnostic Center are suing the LAPD, the city of Los Angeles and multiple police officers, alleging they violated the business owners’ constitutional rights and demanding an unspecified amount in damages. Officers allegedly raided the diagnostic center, located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, thinking it was a front for an illegal cannabis cultivation facility, pointing to higher-than-usual energy use and the “distinct odor” of cannabis plants, according to the lawsuit.

Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said.

The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.”

At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. MRI machines are tube-shaped scanners that use incredibly strong magnetic fields to create images of the brain, bones, joints and other internal organs.



An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.

Los Angeles police and an attorney for the diagnostic center did not immediately return SFGATE's requests for comment.
https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/lapd-cannabis-mri-raid-19789448.php

Hilarious!
 

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
LAPD raid goes from bad to farce after gun allegedly sucked onto MRI machine
By Lester Black,
Cannabis editor
Sep 24, 2024

An officer with the Los Angeles Police Department found out the hard way that you can’t take metal near an MRI machine after their rifle flew out of their hands and became attached to the machine during a pot raid gone bad, according to a federal lawsuit filed last week.

The incident’s details were described in a lawsuit filed by the owners of a Los Angeles medical imaging center, who allege that their business was wrongly targeted by LAPD during a raid in October 2023 The lawsuit was first reported on by Law360.com.

The owners of NoHo Diagnostic Center are suing the LAPD, the city of Los Angeles and multiple police officers, alleging they violated the business owners’ constitutional rights and demanding an unspecified amount in damages. Officers allegedly raided the diagnostic center, located in the Van Nuys neighborhood of Los Angeles, thinking it was a front for an illegal cannabis cultivation facility, pointing to higher-than-usual energy use and the “distinct odor” of cannabis plants, according to the lawsuit.

Officers raided the facility on Oct. 18, 2023, and detained the lone female employee while they searched the business, the lawsuit said. However, they didn’t find a single cannabis plant and only saw a typical medical facility with rooms used for conducting x-rays, ultrasounds, CT scans and MRIs, the owners said.

The officers then released the employee and told her to call a manager, the lawsuit said, while they continued to wander around various rooms of the facility. The plaintiffs say the officers’ behavior was “nothing short of a disorganized circus, with no apparent rules, procedures, or even a hint of coordination.”

At one point, an officer walked into an MRI room, past a sign warning that metal was prohibited inside, with his rifle “dangling… in his right hand, with an unsecured strap,” the lawsuit said. The MRI machine’s magnetic force then allegedly sucked his rifle across the room, pinning it against the machine. MRI machines are tube-shaped scanners that use incredibly strong magnetic fields to create images of the brain, bones, joints and other internal organs.



An officer then allegedly pulled a sealed emergency release button that shut the MRI machine down, deactivating it, evaporating thousands of liters of helium gas and damaging the machine in the process. The officer then grabbed his rifle and left the room, leaving behind a magazine filled with bullets on the office floor, according to the lawsuit.

Los Angeles police and an attorney for the diagnostic center did not immediately return SFGATE's requests for comment.
https://www.sfgate.com/cannabis/article/lapd-cannabis-mri-raid-19789448.php

Hilarious!
oops
 

Hiddenjems

Well-known member
I’d like to see the warrant application. What gave them probable cause to raid the place?

High electric bills and a smell won’t get a warrant in America. But, this is California.
 

Ca++

Well-known member
"We can smell something" was getting so much use here, that the police were told to stop. It's just too easy to invent smelling something, then not have to prove they did.
 

Phytoplankton

Active member
Sounds like a clown show! Someone is going to get a real nice settlement. Those MRI magnetic fields are no joke. I had to have have an emergency MRI once after a hunting accident (80 lead pellets out of a shotgun at 35 yrds!) and I bet they asked me a dozen times if it was lead shot or steel shot. I asked why, they said if it was steel they couldn't do the MRI, since it would suck the steel pellets out of my body, not necessarily the same way they went in (OUCH)!!!!
 
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Hiddenjems

Well-known member
"We can smell something" was getting so much use here, that the police were told to stop. It's just too easy to invent smelling something, then not have to prove they did.
When I was a teen a local cop was famous for saying “I smell weed” and searching people.
 
"distinct odor”

Cali weed does smell more like a medical center than weed. Lemongrass in the waiting room. Antiseptic soaps, rubber gloves, blue pleather exam tables, cigarettes.
 

moose eater

Well-known member
I had imaging done in Van Nuys maybe 7-8 years ago, before I had health insurance, and with the flight down, getting it there was still cheaper than doing it in Alaska. Not the best imaging, but it was a start.

If anyone has a pic of the place that was wrongfully raided, I'd be curious. The place I had imaging done was in a mixed residential/commercial neighborhood, and the place that I went to was a home that had been converted into an imaging center.

Who will pay for it? the cops and/or the city.

And yeah, in many places in the US, "I smell pot" ceased being probable cause for a search on demand or a warrant a LONG time ago. You can find legal precedents on this matter fairly easily.

"If you don't know your rights, then you might not have any."
 
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