Autolycus
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So the sheriffs dont regret terrorizing some family? I understand its the ISPs fault but you can at least say I am sorry.
And the followup...
Link to Follow-Up Story
'Shaq' part of botched porn raid
By TRAVIS REED
The Associated Press
October 25, 2006
ORLANDO, Fla. - Shaquille O’Neal was present during a botched child pornography raid last month while working in Virginia as a reserve sheriff’s deputy.
The Miami Heat center, who pursues his interest in law enforcement during the offseason, denied Tuesday taking part in serving the search warrant at the wrong house Sept. 23. However, Bedford County Sheriff’s Lt. Michael Harmony confirmed to The Associated Press that O’Neal was there.
O’Neal, in Orlando to play a preseason game Tuesday, was asked about the raid and several times somewhat playfully responded, “It wasn’t me.”
The 13-time All-Star has expressed an interest in becoming a Bedford deputy or sheriff somewhere else after his NBA career ends. He also works as a firearms-certified reserve police officer in Miami Beach.
“Of course, being sheriff is a seasoned political position, so we’re not going to be out there knocking down the wrong doors,” he said. “We just have to do the right thing.”
Bedford County Sheriff’s Lt. Mike Harmony told Newschannel 10’s John Carlin that Shaq played an active role in the raid. Harmony says Shaq was one of ten law enforcement officers executing a search warrant, and that he participated in searching the home.
Harmony also adds Shaq was carrying a gun and wearing a bulletproof vest, just like all of the officers.
A.J. Nuckols, who said his family has filed formal complaints, wrote in a letter published in the Chatham Star-Tribune that the raid at his Gretna, home “scared beyond description” him and his family.
He described being “held at gunpoint, taunted and led into the house,” and said the home was ransacked by a “paramilitary search-and-seizure team” that took computers, cameras, DVDs and VHS tapes.
“Men ran at me, dropped into shooting position, double-handed semiautomatic pistols pointed at me, and made me put my hands against my truck,” Nuckols wrote.
Nuckols also said in a telephone interview that he heard O’Neal was at his home, but didn’t specifically see the 7-foot-1, 325-pound All-Star in all the commotion.
It wasn’t until later authorities realized they had been given the wrong IP address, which Internet service providers can use to identify users, leading them to the wrong physical address, Harmony said. It was the Internet company’s mistake, he said.
Harmony said the sheriff’s office apologized, but Nuckols mischaracterized the incident. Harmony said officers were wearing bulletproof vests and may have been in dark or camouflaged clothing, but were not carrying assault rifles or wearing helmets.
“The sheriff’s department does regret that Mr. Nuckols and his family had to go through this, however we were operating under the scope of what we were supposed to do,” he said.
He said officers had to secure the house to ensure their own safety. Harmony also said the sheriff’s office conducted a successful search on the correct home Friday, finding child pornography and securing a statement from a man admitting he knowingly distributed it.
Nuckols said he has filed formal complaints with the Bedford and Pittsylvania sheriff’s offices, who conducted the raid with members of child sex-crime unit Operation Blue Ridge Thunder.
The Bedford Sheriff’s Office enlisted O’Neal to be the spokesman and public face of its anti-child pornography and child predator campaign, making him a deputy last year.
Harmony said O’Neal had been on search warrant executions before.
So the sheriffs dont regret terrorizing some family? I understand its the ISPs fault but you can at least say I am sorry.
And the followup...
Link to Follow-Up Story
The wrong house
Danville Register and Bee
October 27, 2006
Give your opinion on this story
The Sept. 23 raid on the Nuckols’ family home near Gretna has become a national story because Shaquille O’Neal was on the scene.
Shaq is not only an NBA superstar, he’s also a law enforcement supporter and a reserve deputy. He joined with deputies from Pittsylvania and Bedford counties at the Nuckols’ house because they were all on the trail of one of the worst kinds of computer criminals - people who view and trade in child pornography.
But the raid was conducted at the wrong house.
The Bedford County Sheriff’s Office, in a timeline of events released Wednesday, placed blame for the mistake on Fairpoint Communications Inc. of Dodge City, Kans. Authorities claim the company gave Bedford officials the wrong Internet address, which led deputies to the wrong physical address.
“The Pittsylvania County Sheriff’s Department, Bedford County Sheriff’s Department and Blue Ridge Thunder invaded our peaceful lives with military force based on one piece of wrong digital information,” A.J. Nuckols wrote in a letter to the editor published in the Danville Register & Bee (“Why was our home raided?” Oct. 25, page A6). “… No innocent United States citizen should be subjected to this based on so little evidence. …”
It’s awful Nuckols’ innocent family was put through a police raid because of someone else’s error. Either the Internet service provider or the authorities should have done a better job of making sure they had the right address before the raid took place.
In the days before computers entered our homes, though, police officers were sometimes sent to the wrong place because of bad information they received from “confidential informants” or other sources. Raiding the wrong house happens, it just doesn’t happen all that often.
It’s worth pointing out that armed with a different physical address from Fairpoint Communications, investigators raided a second Pittsylvania County home and found child pornography on a computer along with other evidence.
That’s why the real issue here is the importance of aggressively tracking down adults who use the Internet to try to arrange sexual liaisons with minors or to buy, sell and distribute child pornography. We need to continue to fight Internet crime and the criminals who would use the World Wide Web for their own perverse and illegal purposes.
What happened to the Nuckols family was wrong, but the thousands - if not millions - of children victimized by Internet criminals cry out for the justice that only a continuing law enforcement effort can deliver.
