BY BEN L. KAUFMAN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Cincinnati police ransacked their apartment, handcuffed and threatened them at gunpoint, and left after saying it was all a mistake, according to a Winton Hills family.
The mother, identified only as MG, said she was so terrified that she lost control of her bowels and when raiders refused to remove her handcuffs, MG's 6-year-old daughter had to clean her mother within sight of male officers.
"I was tormented that they would do something like that," MG said. "It was just wrong."
Their civil rights suit, filed recently in U.S. District Court by attorneys Marc D. Mezibov and Harvey A. Richman, seeks unspecified damages.
Joining the suit were MG's other daughter, 7, and a niece, 15, who were in the Kings Run Road apartment during the predawn raid Nov. 8, 1995.
Defendants include the city; then-acting Safety Director Joseph Charlton; Police Chief Michael Snowden; since-retired Capt. Joseph H. Koch, police internal investigations commander; Sgt. Donald Luck; Lt. Donald Smith; SWAT members Sgts. Mark Briede and Randy Rengering; and unidentified officers.
There is some agreement on what happened:
Police cut open the screen door and rushed in, using a key provided by the Cincinnati Metropolitan Housing Authority (CMHA).
Officers handcuffed MG and her niece.
Police found neither of the men they sought and left.
MG did not give permission for the search.
After that, the stories differ widely.
Mr. Mezibov said officers left behind an unsigned copy of a search warrant for a Winneste Avenue apartment and still haven't provided a warrant for MG's apartment.
Without such a warrant, he continued, the search violated MG's rights under the Fourth Amendment.
"They just tore my house up, looking for what I don't know," MG said recently.
MG never was accused of any wrongdoing.
Mr. Mezibov said officers indicated they were after Toby Palmer, then 20, and Vernon Garrett Jr., then 18.
Mr. Mezibov says police aggressively quizzed MG about Mr. Palmer and called him "her man," but she denied knowing him.
Mr. Mezibov said MG responded to questions about Mr. Garrett, saying he lived nearby.
Mr. Palmer was free on bond after being arrested two days earlier for trespassing at the CMHA housing complex.
However, a review of Mr. Palmer's court record failed to indicate why police were looking for him Nov. 8.
Mr. Palmer had been charged with assaulting an officer Oct. 20, but police presumably knew that before he was freed on bond for the trespassing charge.
Mr. Garrett was suspected of shooting at police officers Daniel Coates and Brett Isaac on Nov. 6.
The shots missed both officers and Mr. Palmer, who was in the back seat of a police car after being arrested for trespassing. Mr. Garrett eventually was convicted of two counts of felonious assault on police and sent to prison.
In addition to lacking a valid warrant, Mr. Mezibov said, police used excessive force or threats of force, directed repeated obscenities at MG, and indulged in "gratuitous and cruel degradation and humiliation of innocent persons."
Captain's report
Cincinnati's Office of Municipal Investigation referred MG's complaint to police internal investigations, and Capt. Koch interviewed officers, MG and her niece.
In his June 26, 1996, report, Capt. Koch:
Said Sgt. Luck filed the affidavit for the search warrant for MG's building and Hamilton County Municipal Judge Dennis Helmick signed it.
Agreed only that officers cut MG's screen door and pointed firearms at MG and the youngsters.
Could not sustain MG's claims that searchers broke a bed frame, that Sgt. Luck was rude and used obscenities, that officers refused to remove MG's handcuffs when she moved her bowels in the bathroom or that her daughter had to clean her with the bathroom door open. Quoted Sgt. Rengering as saying Mr. Garrett was suspected of shooting at police and Mr. Palmer was wanted for an armed felonious assault.
Faulted only Sgt. Rengering for failing to document damage to the screen door.
Explained that SWAT members were called in to secure the apartment for searchers because it was a "high-risk" raid where weapons were expected.
Mr. Mezibov said Mr. Charlton and Chief Snowden approved Capt. Koch's report and closed the case.
Deputy Solicitor Karl Kadon said the city is still investigating the allegations in the lawsuit.
He said several of the suit's contentions are still in dispute. MG moved from Winton Hills at the urging of the psychologist to whom she took her troubled daughters after the raid.
"I've just got to be strong for my kids. . . . They hurt my kids as well as me."
