OREGON UTILITY OFFICIAL FILES EXCESSIVE FORCE SUIT

EUGENE (AP) - An Oregon utility official has filed a federal lawsuit
claiming that Eugene police used excessive force and violated her
civil rights during a 2009 drug raid.

The complaint filed by Eugene Water & Electric Board Commissioner
JoAnn Ernst also includes her three adult children. It seeks
unspecified damages for the use of "paramilitary activities,
personnel, tactics and equipment" while executing a search warrant at
Ernst's home.

Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns told The Register-Guard he has not yet
had a chance to review the complaint in detail. But he told the
newspaper the police department has investigated and determined the
search followed department policy and met national law enforcement standards.

The lawsuit alleges that Officer Joe Kidd used deceptive information
about Ernst's son, Jack Allen, in a sworn affidavit to obtain court
permission to serve the warrant with a SWAT team. Kerns denied the
allegation, saying "there is nothing to suggest that officer Kidd's
affidavit included false or misleading statements." Prosecutors said
police suspected Allen of being involved in a heroin trafficking
ring. He was sentenced to probation last fall after pleading guilty
to one count of methamphetamine possession.

Ernst and her daughters, Jamie and Joanna Allen, had faced felony
drug charges in the case.

They were sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to misdemeanor
charges, Ernst for possessing more than an ounce of marijuana and her
daughters for frequenting a place where a controlled substance was used.

Ernst, who was elected in 2008, told a judge at her November
sentencing that the pot was for medicinal purposes and that she had
since obtained an Oregon Medical Marijuana card. The judge ordered
police to return her marijuana-growing equipment seized in the raid.

The family's lawsuit charges that Kidd's search warrant affidavit
argued for a "high risk" approach to Ernst's home by saying its
occupants were potentially "armed with firearms.

The complaint questioned his inclusion of a discredited informant's
statement from a police report about an incident in which a man was
shot in the hand.

Kidd cited the informant's claim that Jack Allen accidentally shot
the man, but omitted other parts of the report in which the victim
said and an investigating officer concluded that the wound was
self-inflicted, the lawsuit said.

As a result of Officer Kidd's deceptive affidavit," the complaint
alleges, the sleeping family was awakened during the pre-dawn hours
by a "paramilitary type method of incursion into the home.

The forced entry with a battering ram included "flash-bang" grenades,
and one struck Jamie Allen in the head, the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit claims the family was traumatized by "black-clad officers
in riot gear screaming orders" and says Ernst's daughters are still
afraid to sleep in their room.