Answers remain elusive in Davis ICE raid
A Davis woman whose Oak Avenue rental home was raided by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents — an incident she said terrified the residents — continues to pursue answers regarding the agency’s actions that spring morning.
In an op-ed piece that was published in The Enterprise last month, Linda Clark wrote that agents burst into the home shortly after 6 a.m. April 26 seeking evidence related to a child pornography website allegedly viewed at the house more than a year ago — long before the current residents, including Clark’s grandson and several visiting UC Davis scholars, lived there.
“I don’t have a quibble with them searching, or what they’re searching for,” Clark said last week at her home, which sits next door to the rental property.
“But these are the people that are supposed to be protecting us — they’re not supposed to be terrifying us,” she said. “The amount of force that was used was outrageous.”
Clark has since filed a formal complaint with ICE, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
ICE’s public affairs office released a statement this week through Rep. Mike Thompson’s office confirming that its agents served a federal search warrant “in conjunction with an ongoing criminal investigation involving child pornography.”
“Because that investigation is continuing, we are not at liberty to disclose further details about the case at this time. However, ICE is aware of allegations made by the property owner regarding agents’ actions during that enforcement operation,” the statement says.
“ICE takes all allegations of officer misconduct seriously. The circumstances surrounding this enforcement action are currently under review by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.”
Clark’s grandson, 19-year-old Tylor Murray-Clark, said anywhere from eight to a dozen ICE agents cuffed, searched and interrogated the residents, some of whom had a limited grasp of English, for several hours.
“The whole situation was ridiculously out of proportion,” Murray-Clark said. The Sacramento City College student said the agents verbally informed him of the search warrant as they cuffed him, but didn’t show him the document until the residents had been questioned.
A female Vietnamese scholar who was several months pregnant suffered a miscarriage three days later, according to Clark, and the roommates were left shaken and nervous.
In addition to the use of force, Clark questions the federal agency’s execution of the warrant — which was valid until May 9 — just a day after it was signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Edmund F. Brennan.
“They had ample time to research who was (living) in the house,” Clark said.
The incident led to a meeting last month among UCD and ICE officials, as well as a representative of the Vietnamese Consulate.
“ICE agreed to coordinate with UC Davis police about future ICE actions in the city of Davis in order to avoid disturbing individuals who are not the focus of their investigation,” UCD spokesman Andy Fell said.
The Yolo County chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union also may weigh in.
Natalie Wormeli, the chapter’s president, said the ACLU hopes to meet with representatives of ICE or Homeland Security “and let them know of the community’s concerns.”
“We want to know what their procedures are and if they were properly followed,” Wormeli said. “Certainly, the Fourth Amendment issues concern us.”
Davis city officials, meanwhile, say there is little they can do in response to the incident.
“The reports of what occurred are very disturbing and disappointing. That any visitor to our community or citizen would be treated in this way is patently unnecessary,” Mayor Joe Krovoza said. “This is, however, a matter of federal law enforcement’s action. Neither the city or the state has a role here.”
However, Krovoza said the city has offered the services of its ombudsman, Bob Aaronson, to assist Clark or her tenants “to help them understand the appropriate ways that a complaint against the agents or ICE might be pursued. I don’t see more of a role for the city at this time, but we will continue to monitor the issue.”
Davis Police Chief Landy Black agreed that the city is unlikely to get involved in the matter. He said while ICE notified his agency several days in advance of their plans to search the Oak Avenue home, local police were not asked to assist.
“We were aware of it, as is the normal protocol,” Black said. “The federal government has ultimate authority — it supersedes and exceeds ours.”
Clark, meanwhile, continues to wait for answers. She said she’s prepared to keep fighting until she gets them.
“If people don’t complain, nothing happens,” she said. “So I’m screaming at whoever I can get to listen.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or (530) 747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene
Short URL: http://www.davisenterprise.com/?p=54915
Posted by Lauren Keene
on Jun 16 2011.
Last Login: Mon 21 May 2012 04:26:23 PM PDT
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“ICE agreed to coordinate with UC Davis police about future ICE actions in the city of Davis in order to avoid disturbing individuals who are not the focus of their investigation,” UCD spokesman Andy Fell said.
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Is there a typo in this sentence? It makes no sense that if ICE is taking action in the City of Davis that it would warn UC Davis cops? How about warning the Davis Police Department?
Even better, how about the men from ICE do a little bit of an investigation before they break down someone’s doors and figure out that the person they are after actually lives in the house?
And even better than that, when the men from ICE are not looking for a violent criminal, not looking for a murderer or a heavily armed cult or a rapist, they don’t use military tactics when they arrive at someone’s home? They have dozens of heavily armed cops and even more back up. They had no reason in this case to believe their lives would be put in danger if they simply knocked on the door and presented the warrant.
Instead, these guys acted as if they were in a war zone. That is not proper behavior in a civil society. Any police force which uses excessive force in that manner should be severely sanctioned. It is inexcusable for the people we pay to protect us from intruders act upon us, the innocent, in worse fashion than any criminal intruders would act.
Some have suggested the proper response for homeowners is to reply with their own firepower. That is nuts. That will result in a dead homeowner and will give ICE and these other yahoo agencies an excuse to behave like they have been behaving. The answer in a civil society is to require our police officers to be civilized toward those who have the presumption of innocence.
The letters G – E – S – T – A – P – O come to mind… but of course it can’t happen here.
No tears for child pornography victims?
That would be irrelevant as this isn’t a story about child pornography victims. This is a story about victims of the government’s aggressively clumsy tactics.
The last I checked I thought that the F.B.I. did any and all investigations when it comes to child pornography.
What is I.C.E. (IMMIGRATION and CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT) doing serving a warrant in regards to child pornography? I just did a quick (less than 5 minutes worth) search into the investigation of child pornography and nowhere did I find that I.C.E. was involved in such crimes. The one agency with the jurisdiction to involve themselves into such investigations is the F.B.I.
I would think that I.C.E. had their hands full with investigations that concerned IMMIGRATION and CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT as their name suggested!!
From the Denver Post:
“… a little-known fact about ICE — it is the largest investigative arm under the Department of Homeland Security, and fighting child pornography, child sexual tourism and trafficking of children is one of the agency’s top responsibilities along with enforcing federal immigration laws.”
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_17455815
Since nobody present at the address at the time of the raid (or for some time perviously) is accused of looking at Child Porn, just how is your comment relevant? Slavery was an awful institution, but that does not justify dropping the 82nd Airborne on Richmond Virginia at this late date. I don’t expect the police to get absolutely everything right, but this is ostentatious incompetence. In the first place sending a SWAT team was overkill even if one assumes that the original suspect was still in residence. I don’t care so much about risk to him, but a SWAT raid is a measurable danger to the entire neighborhood, and it was uncalled for. With the original suspect long gone, this was simply Keystone Cops with heavy weapons, a recipe for tragedy. This kind of idiocy does nothing to harm anyone involved with Child Porn, and wringing hands over Child Porn is missing the point on a National Varsity level.
Let’s suppose the agents had done some investigation and found the person who had viewed child pornography. Why do they need to blow the door apart? Waiting 20 seconds for somebody to answer a knock isn’t going to harm anyone or the investigation. Some people just like to break stuff, and that’s a pretty poor attitude to have among folks whose job exists to protect people and property.
I don’t think it’s justifiable, but I imagine their justification is that someone could have a kill switch on their computer.
What seems to be lacking here is the fact that law enforcement is supposed to articulate, to a magistrate, that the person or evidence to be seized is reasonably believed to be on the premises when applying for a warrant, especially when they are investigating an incident from March of last year. That would require surveillance, investigation, actual police work. If I were Federal Magistrate Brennan, I would be thoroughly scrutinizing any further requests for warrants to these bozos.
It is fascinating, if not plenty disturbing, that so many are concerned with the technical particulars government how and when agents can bash down the doors of harmless people. The American of today is a far cry from the free and brave of 1776.
“‘We were aware of it, as is the normal protocol’, Black said. ‘The federal government has ultimate authority — it supersedes and exceeds ours.’”
That statement is true for city and State law enforcement, but the highest law enforcement authority in any county is the Sheriff, who outranks federal, State and city police in his/her county, by virtue of the Constitution and the office being an elected office. If you want protection from such raids, then appeal to your county’s Sheriff to stop all other law enforcement from conducting such raids on the people in your county, s/he has the Constitutional authority to do so.
OK! Enough already. This story has been on the front page of your paper “forever” (at least several weeks). Haven’t you milked it for all its worth? Lets get on to some real “news”. You shouldn’t be constantly editorializing on your front page.
Greg is not interested in this story, but many of us are; so keep on it!
This story and the many others like it (read theagitator.com for examples) need to stay in the public eye until we can enact real, constitutional reform. No police agency should be conducting raids with SWAT teams unless two requirements are BOTH met: the offense must be important enough to justify the level of force used, and the likelihood that the targets will fight back must be great enough to justify the force used. Police who conduct raids (and judges who sign the warrants) that fail to meet these requirements need to be personally liable for civil and criminal penalties just as if they had made the same attack with no badges, PLUS an enhancement for violating the trust we’ve given them.
“This story has been on the front page of your paper “forever” (at least several weeks).”
The story was written on Thursday of last week.
Boy, the folks come out on the Left against the police, but *not* against child porn?!
I quote: “…agents burst into the home … seeking evidence related to a child pornography website allegedly viewed at the house more than a year ago — long before the current residents, including Clark’s grandson and several visiting UC Davis scholars, lived there.”
Is this true? Did the cops know that the supposed criminals weren’t there?
I see here where the gov’t can’t comment. The only story I know similar to this was when (liberal) talk show host Bernie Ward of KGO radio in San Francisco was accused of viewing and transmitting child porn images.
What did we hear from Ward, and his backers? George Bush wanted to take Ward down. He was doing research for ” a book he was writing”. There was no substance to it. He had only transmitted one picture. On and on.
In the end, Ward admitting to having between 300 and 500 child pornography images on his computer. There was no evidence that he was writing a book. (He had also never wriiten one before.) Pete Townsend defense?
I’m sorry that this woman had her cheap rental home door broken down. I’m sorry that the cops ‘may have’ misjudged who was there, or not there. But on the opposite side, what if they had gone in there like Pee Wee Herman, and there were child porn images – that the criminals had time to erase from their hard drive?
I would think that erring on the side of child safety would be preferred by most citizens.
@ML1999
Every civilized person is against both child porn and police state behaviors. It isn’t necessary to pick just one of the two. When I consider the future of the country in which my child will grow up, I worry more about the proliferation of laws and regulations and the militarization of police forces than I do about the possibility of her being sexually abused.
By the way, I’ve no idea why you think that concern for police abuses comes only from the “left.” I’m not a leftist and I visit web sites, such as injusticeeverywhere.com, overlawyered.com, and reason.com that highlight law enforcement abuses but are not left-wing. Both the Right and Left have shown in many instances that they are capable of producing police states.
Dear Nicholas, if every person is against child porn, they why were most rushing aghast at a cheap, broken door, and didn’t mention the possible crime of child porn??!!
Nobody is against people being prosecuted for child pornography but the way ICE handled it was wrong.