Leonid and Arlene Marmelshtein were sitting down to dinner when the Southfield cops burst into their home in December 2004 looking for marijuana.
After battering down their front door, the cops tossed in two flash-bang grenades and knocked Leonid Marmelshtein, a 69-year-old Russian immigrant, to the ground.
Today, the couple is suing the Southfield Police Department and 10 officers who took part in the raid, alleging use of excessive force in storming their house and terrorizing them.
The U.S. District Court case focuses on the use of the flash-bang devices, like the one used in Sunday morning's raid in Detroit in which 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was fatally shot when a police officer's gun discharged.
A lawyer in the Stanley-Jones case filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the girl's family.
The Marmelshteins' lawyer, William Goodman of Detroit, said Sunday's incident has prompted the Detroit chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to study the use of flash-bang devices to protect Detroit-area residents and safeguard their civil rights.
"Flash-bang devices are explosives, and the police should use a lot of care before deploying them," Goodman said.
Goodman said the Southfield Police Department uses them routinely without any training, placing citizens at risk. He said he thinks other Detroit-area police departments are doing the same thing.
A lawyer for the Southfield Police Department disputed that.
"To say there isn't any training is absolutely false," attorney T. Joseph Seward of Livonia said Tuesday.
And the use of the flash-bang grenades in the Marmelshtein raid was "entirely appropriate," he said.
But a federal judge disagreed.
"No reasonable law enforcement officer would have considered a confused elderly couple to be capable of producing the kind of tense and rapidly evolving uncertain situation which would require 10 police officers to make split-second decisions, including the use of two flash-bang devices," U.S. District Judge Julian Cook said in September in refusing Southfield's request to dismiss the suit.
The city has appealed to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Southfield cops began investigating the couple after neighbors complained about traffic at the home, suspecting drug trafficking. A check of their trash yielded traces of marijuana, so police got a search warrant.
Police said they burst into the house after the couple refused to answer the door.
In the moments that followed, the husband was knocked to the ground. Goodman says he was punched and kicked, which police deny.
Goodman said police found a few crumbs of marijuana in an adult son's sock drawer.
Police charged Marmelshtein with obstructing and assaulting the police and disorderly conduct. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. A judge took the plea under advisement and dismissed the charge a year later.
News Hawk: Warbux 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Freep.com
Author: David Ashenfelter
Contact: freep.com | Detroit Free Press | Detroit news, community, entertainment, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Detroit, MI
Copyright: 2010 The Detroit Free Press
Website: Southfield couple suing cops over raid tactics at home | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
After battering down their front door, the cops tossed in two flash-bang grenades and knocked Leonid Marmelshtein, a 69-year-old Russian immigrant, to the ground.
Today, the couple is suing the Southfield Police Department and 10 officers who took part in the raid, alleging use of excessive force in storming their house and terrorizing them.
The U.S. District Court case focuses on the use of the flash-bang devices, like the one used in Sunday morning's raid in Detroit in which 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones was fatally shot when a police officer's gun discharged.
A lawyer in the Stanley-Jones case filed a federal lawsuit Tuesday on behalf of the girl's family.
The Marmelshteins' lawyer, William Goodman of Detroit, said Sunday's incident has prompted the Detroit chapter of the National Lawyers Guild to study the use of flash-bang devices to protect Detroit-area residents and safeguard their civil rights.
"Flash-bang devices are explosives, and the police should use a lot of care before deploying them," Goodman said.
Goodman said the Southfield Police Department uses them routinely without any training, placing citizens at risk. He said he thinks other Detroit-area police departments are doing the same thing.
A lawyer for the Southfield Police Department disputed that.
"To say there isn't any training is absolutely false," attorney T. Joseph Seward of Livonia said Tuesday.
And the use of the flash-bang grenades in the Marmelshtein raid was "entirely appropriate," he said.
But a federal judge disagreed.
"No reasonable law enforcement officer would have considered a confused elderly couple to be capable of producing the kind of tense and rapidly evolving uncertain situation which would require 10 police officers to make split-second decisions, including the use of two flash-bang devices," U.S. District Judge Julian Cook said in September in refusing Southfield's request to dismiss the suit.
The city has appealed to the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Southfield cops began investigating the couple after neighbors complained about traffic at the home, suspecting drug trafficking. A check of their trash yielded traces of marijuana, so police got a search warrant.
Police said they burst into the house after the couple refused to answer the door.
In the moments that followed, the husband was knocked to the ground. Goodman says he was punched and kicked, which police deny.
Goodman said police found a few crumbs of marijuana in an adult son's sock drawer.
Police charged Marmelshtein with obstructing and assaulting the police and disorderly conduct. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor. A judge took the plea under advisement and dismissed the charge a year later.
News Hawk: Warbux 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Freep.com
Author: David Ashenfelter
Contact: freep.com | Detroit Free Press | Detroit news, community, entertainment, yellow pages and classifieds. Serving Detroit, MI
Copyright: 2010 The Detroit Free Press
Website: Southfield couple suing cops over raid tactics at home | freep.com | Detroit Free Press
