LOVELAND MAN FILES LAWSUIT FOR RAID

Payment Sought For Emotional Distress, Suffering And More

LOVELAND - A Loveland man has filed a lawsuit against law enforcement
agencies in Loveland, Fort Collins and Larimer County plus area
governments and personnel after a 2007 SWAT team raid at his home
where officials alleged methamphetamine was being
manufactured.

On Sept. 6, 2007, the Larimer County Drug Task Force raided a portion
of the old sugar factory at 1101 N. Madison Ave., where Jeremy Myers
lived.

The raid was performed with a no-knock search warrant as part of an
ongoing investigation of Myers.

Myers, who was arrested and charged with manufacturing
methamphetamine, faced 32 years for operating a meth lab and several
other related charges.

The charges were dropped two months later after tests found the
substances officers seized thinking they were drugs tested negative
for illegal substances.

In the lawsuit, filed by Fort Collins attorney Randall R. Meyers on
behalf of Myers and Great Western Salvage, the plaintiffs state The
Larimer County Drug Task Force descended on Myers' property with
"SWAT teams, tanks and snipers, resembling a small invasion."

Myers alleges his constitutional rights were violated during the
raid, and he is seeking payment for damages to his property,
emotional distress, suffering, loss of reputation, humiliation,
public ridicule and scorn.

Officials and agencies being sued by Myers include: Brian Koopman,
detective for the Loveland Police Department; Loveland police Chief
Luke Hecker; Fort Collins police Chief Dennis Harrison; Larimer
County Sheriff James Alderden; city of

Loveland; city of Fort Collins; Larimer County; Larimer County
District Attorney Larry Abrahamson; and the 8th Judicial District of
Colorado.

According to the lawsuit, the investigation of Myers began in May
2007 when a confidential informant told police Myers was cooking meth
in the attic of the building his father owned and where he was living.

The investigation reportedly included setting up surveillance cameras
and examining trash thrown out by Myers and his father, Jim Myers.

"The name or any information about the informant interestingly has
never been provided," the lawsuit states. "Additionally, no evidence
of any sale of drugs was uncovered. When the Larimer County Drug Task
Force and its SWAT teams stormed onto the location, they broke into
a building (referred to as the White Building) not even at the
address in the affidavit."

Myers did not own the building police officials entered, and he did
not have access to it, the lawsuit states.

The building was part of the Great Western Sugar Factory and was the
location of the sugar beet laboratory for the sugar factory
operation, the lawsuit states.

During the raid, a jar was taken from the building owned by the
Amalgamated Sugar Company, which also owns a portion of the former
sugar processing mill. Lab reports from the Colorado Bureau of
Investigation lab later found that the jar was not filled with meth
as police suspected, the lawsuit states.