CONCORD FAMILY SUES OVER SEARCH BY POLICE

CONCORD

- -- A family whose home was raided by Concord police using a mistaken
search warrant has filed a federal lawsuit charging police with
negligent judgment and with targeting African Americans.

City officials say the raid was legal and was based on information
provided by a reliable informant whose tips had led to at least nine
drug and gun arrests in the past two years.

Attorney Sharon Jumper of Charlotte is representing Concord residents
Leonard Mackin, Charlene Howie and four children, who are African Americans.

The suit was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle
District of North Carolina in Greensboro. It alleges members of the
Concord Police Department, including Detective Larry Welch, violated
Mackin, Howie and the children's "federal and state constitutional
rights when they burst into the plaintiffs' home brandishing weapons
on the evening of May 22, 1998."

The city of Concord is named in the suit "for the actions of its
agents and employees, as well as for negligent training and
supervision of its agents and employees."

The suit asks for unspecified damages and also alleges trespass, false
imprisonment, assault, battery and intentional infliction of emotional
distress.

Jumper said Mackin and Howie fear they may lose their jobs as a result
of their lawsuit. Mackin is a sanitation worker for the city of
Concord, and Howie is a bus driver for the Cabarrus County Schools,
Jumper said.

Concord police say they sought and received a search warrant for the
house at 66 Powder St. N.W. because they had been informed cocaine was
being trafficked there.

According to the lawsuit and police reports of the incident, 11 police
officers entered the house about 7:55 p.m. with guns drawn and ordered
the residents to lie down on the floor.

It was not until several minutes had passed, and after Howie had
repeatedly told officers they had the wrong house, that Welch
recognized Mackin as a fellow city employee.

"Leonard, is that you?" Welch asked.

Welch then told officers to release Howie and Mackin. Welch said
police had to be in the wrong house because he knew Mackin was not
involved in trafficking drugs, according to police reports. Police
apologized immediately, then returned later in the evening and
apologized again.

Concord Police Chief Robert Cansler said the search warrant was
accurately based on the informant's tip, but the informant was
confused between the house at 66 Powder St. N.W. and a similar-looking
residence at a similar address on Powder Street Southwest.

"We don't contend that there wasn't something that could have gone
better," Cansler said. "The legal standard for doing a search is
probable cause. The very nature of the word `probable' -- it just
doesn't mean you are right 100 percent of the time."

Jumper said she intends to prove that the Concord Police Department
targets African Americans.

"It is something that we're seeing -- a pattern of negligent judgment
- -- when you see police going regularly to the houses of African
Americans in Concord," Jumper said.

On April 13, a 15-year-old African American boy was shot in the
buttock by Concord police Officer Lennie Bryan Rivera during a search
of a home for drugs. Thomas Roosevelt Edwards Jr. told police he was
getting down on the floor as ordered by police when he was shot.
Rivera is on administrative duty pending the investigation's outcome,
Cansler said.

Cansler said he and his department would stand up under any scrutiny
of the way officers execute search warrants and of the way they treat
people of all races. He said there have been problems with fewer than
1 percent of search warrants during his nine years as chief.

"You can't tell me this was racially motivated, either. (Detective)
Welch also is an African American," Cansler said.

"We don't contend that there wasn't something that could have gone
better."