EWEB OFFICIAL SUES OVER DRUG RAID

Joann Ernst Claims Police Used Excessive Force Against Her Family

Eugene Water & Electric Board Commissioner JoAnn Ernst and her three
adult children have filed a federal lawsuit accusing Eugene police of
excessive force and violating their civil rights during an Aug. 11,
2009, drug raid on their west Eugene home.

Eugene attorneys Brian Michaels and Marianne Dugan filed the complaint
Wednesday afternoon on behalf of Ernst, her daughters Jamie and Joanna
Allen, and her son Jack Allen.

The suit names the city as a defendant, as well as Eugene police
officers Joe Kidd and Matt Lowen. It seeks unspecified damages over
the police department's use of "paramilitary activities, personnel,
tactics and equipment" while executing a search warrant at Ernst's
home.

The family's complaint charges that Kidd used deceptive information
about Jack Allen in a sworn affidavit to obtain court permission to
serve the warrant with a forceful, predawn SWAT team entry.

Eugene Police Chief Pete Kerns said late Thursday afternoon that he
had not yet had a chance to review the complaint in detail, but added:
"We have investigated our use of force and our use of the SWAT team in
this incident. It was within our policy and within the standards of
law enforcement across the country and throughout Oregon.

"There is nothing to suggest that officer Kidd's affidavit included
false or misleading statements," Kerns said. "I look forward to
defending our officers in court."

Ernst, her son and both daughters initially faced felony drug charges
in the case, but only Jack Allen was convicted of a felony. He was
sentenced to probation last fall after pleading guilty to one count of
methamphetamine possession.

According to prosecutors in the case, police targeted Ernst's house
for the raid after investigating an alleged heroin trafficking ring in
which Jack Allen was a suspected drug runner. No heroin or weapons
were found in the family's Churchill area home.

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

Ernst, an EWEB commissioner 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 suit 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.

It also challenged Kidd's statement for reporting Jack Allen's
previous arrest for carrying a concealed weapon without clarifying
that the weapon in that misdemeanor case was a knife.

The suit said Ernst and her children do not know whether Kidd knew
about the omitted details or whether Lowen deceived Kidd and thus Lane
County Circuit Judge Doug Mitchell, who issued the warrant.

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

The forced entry included "flash-bang grenades ... designed to emit a
brilliant light and loud noise upon detonation," the suit said. Such
grenades are intended to "stun, disorient, and temporarily blind"
occupants of the targeted building, giving officers time to "safely
enter and secure a potentially dangerous area."

One of the grenades struck Jamie Allen in the head, the complaint
alleges, while Jack Allen was cut in the arm and face by shattered
window glass. Police also broke in the home's door with a battering
ram, the suit charges.

The raid destroyed flooring and shorted out electricity in Ernst's
home, the suit contends. It alleges that 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, "experiencing night
terrors and what can only be described as PTSD (post traumatic stress
disorder)."

The complaint says the police tactics violated the family's
constitutional guarantee of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

The suit seeks unspecified economic damages for medical bills and
other costs. It also seeks unspecified punitive damages and
noneconomic damages for physical and emotional pain and suffering.