Cops Argued Argue They Have the Right to Peek Inside Your Windows and Jiggle Your Door. From [HERE] and [HERE] A Latino man pulled from his home and arrested at gunpoint after two Spokane County Sheriff’s deputies went to the wrong address achieved a partial victory this week when a federal judge ruled that the deputies violated his Fourth Amendment seizure rights and used excessive force.

Conner Griffith-Guerrero filed a federal civil lawsuit against Deputy Robert Brooke, Deputy Evan Logan and Spokane County in 2015, two years after the incident at his home on North Five Mile Road. Both sides filed summary judgment requests and this week U.S. District Court Judge Thomas O. Rice ruled that a portion of each request would be granted.

On Dec. 13, 2013, a resident on North Five Mile Road called 911 to report that there was a suspicious car parked at his neighbor’s house and his neighbor was in Arizona for the winter. He provided the address to the house, but deputies couldn’t find the house and instead went to another home. They drew their guns and walked around the house, testing doors and shining their flashlights in windows, according to court documents.

Griffith-Guerrero was in the basement watching television when he saw the flashlights shining in. He said he was afraid he was about to be burglarized so he went upstairs and hit the front door to let whoever was outside know that someone was home, the lawsuit said. He went outside to look and saw someone with a gun. He screamed and ran into the house.

Brooke then identified himself and Griffith-Guerrero opened the door and was ordered outside the home and orderered toget on his knees and then he was handcuffed. He said that one of the deputies was pointing a gun at him the whole time, but the deputy testified in a deposition that he was merely holding his gun in the “low ready” position.

The deputies put him in handcuffs at gunpoint, according to court documents.

Eventually they let him go when they see that the address on his ID matches the address of the house that they just pulled him out of.

After it was determined that Griffith-Guerrero lived there, Brooke reportedly told him “You’re lucky I didn’t (expletive) shoot you,” the lawsuit said.

According to court documents, Brooke received a “shift counseling,” described as the lowest level of discipline, for going to the wrong address.

The incident occurred after a man called 911 to report a "suspicious" vehicle in his neighbor's driveway. The vehicle was suspicious because the homeowner was in Arizona for the winter, the man told 911 dispatchers, according to court documents.

The vehicle left before deputies Logan and Brooke arrived. But when they did pull up, they confirmed with dispatch the address where the suspicious vehicle was parked. Problem was, they couldn't find the house. They assumed the caller was mistaken, and, seeing tire tracks in Griffith-Guerrero's driveway, silently surrounded his home. 

They didn't bother to call the man who reported the suspicious vehicle, or knock on his door.

In court, the deputies argue that they have the right to peek inside your windows and jiggle your door handles under the "community caretaking" exception to a search warrant. 

Heather Yakely, the attorney representing Spokane County and the deputies, argued that the deputies had reasonable suspicion to approach the house and detain Griffith-Guerrero. The deputies were checking for signs of a burglary and Yakely argued there was no violation of the Fourth Amendment because deputies never crossed the threshold into the house.

Rice said the deputies did have the right to check the home for signs of a break-in, but ruled the deputies committed a warrantless seizure and used excessive force. “Searches and seizures inside a home without a warrant are presumptively unreasonable,” he wrote. “It does not matter that the officers did not actually enter the house to make the arrest.

“Ordering plaintiff out of his home is a categorical violation of his Fourth Amendment rights – whether it is called a temporary detention or an arrest, it was a seizure.”

Rice wrote that he found the defense’s arguments that the deputies did not use excessive force “unconvincing.”

“Pointing guns at plaintiff, ordering him out of his home at night and onto his knees in his own front yard to handcuff him was objectively unreasonable under the circumstances,” Rice wrote.

Rice did agree with Yakely on another issue. He ordered Spokane County dismissed from the lawsuit because Griffith-Guerrero didn’t show that there was a “pattern or practice of officers conducting illegal warrantless searches.”

Rice ruled that Griffith-Guerrero’s claims of assault and battery, false arrest and imprisonment and negligence in the lawsuit can be pursued.