FAMILY FILES LAWSUIT ALLEGING POLICE RAIDED THE WRONG HOUSE

An after-midnight, no-knock drug raid that ended with a 46-year-old
Osawatomie man being shot to death in his bedroom was based on faulty
information and occurred at the wrong house, a lawsuit filed by his
family alleges.

Willie Heard Sr. was shot to death at 1:25 a.m. on Feb. 13, 1999, in
front of his wife and 16-year-old daughter 11 seconds after sheriff's
officers and police detonated what was described as a "flash-bang"
device and crashed through the front door of the home.

Heard was holding a rifle, authorities said. It turned out to be
unloaded.

The daughter, Ashley Heard, had run screaming for her father as
authorities broke in. After the shooting, Ashley and her mother, Linda
Heard, were arrested and taken to police headquarters, according to
the complaint, which was filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Kansas
City, Kan. Ashley and Linda Heard were never charged .

The raid -- but not the shooting -- was captured on a law enforcement
videotape.

After being shot once in the chest, "Heard's voice is heard on the
videotape asking for help and protesting his innocence of any
wrongdoing," the complaint says. He died a short time later.

The complaint alleges that the officers did not announce themselves or
order Heard to drop the rifle before shooting him.

After an investigation by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, Miami
County Attorney David Miller ruled that the officers who participated
in the raid had not committed any crimes. No disciplinary action was
taken against the officers.

The plaintiffs are Ashley and Linda Heard; Willie Heard Jr., a son;
Deandra Heard, who is not otherwise identified; and H. Reed Walker,
administrator of the estate. They are seeking unspecified actual and
compensatory damages.

Their lawyer, John Kurtz, could not be reached.

Twenty-six officers from the Miami County Sheriff's Department and the
Paola and Osawatomie police departments participated in the raid, the
complaint says. The officers, it says, gave a judge false and
misleading information to obtain a warrant to search for cocaine. The
warrant did not authorize a no-knock entry, and no cocaine was found,
the plaintiffs allege.

The complaint quotes a police report as saying that a "trace amount of
green vegetation residue," presumably marijuana, was found but not
collected because there wasn't enough to test.

The search was based on information that was contradictory and never
thoroughly checked out, the complaint says. That information included
allegations that police had seen drug sales on the street near the
Heard house. Authorities suspected that a relative of Heard who lived
in the same block was selling drugs, the suit says.

An Osawatomie police officer, who claimed he had been in the house
where drugs were sold, drew the floor plan for the raid, but it turned
out to be the floor plan of another house, the complaint says.

The Miami County Board of Commissioners, the sheriff and the cities of
Osawatomie and Paola and their police chiefs were named as defendants
for failing to properly train and supervise officers who conducted the
operation. Six individual officers who participated also were named as
defendants.

Heard had been an employee of a graphics firm for nine years before
his death. The survivors no longer live in the Osawatomie area.

Heard had two convictions in Miami County -- one in 1972 for stealing
cigarettes worth less than $50 and one for a marijuana charge in 1991.