{"id":7656,"date":"2017-08-17T15:46:46","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2754925"},"modified":"2017-08-17T15:46:46","modified_gmt":"2017-08-17T15:46:46","slug":"special-forces-soldier-sues-fountain-swat-after-legal-pot-grow-raid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/special-forces-soldier-sues-fountain-swat-after-legal-pot-grow-raid\/","title":{"rendered":"Special forces soldier sues Fountain SWAT after legal pot grow raid"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/special-forces-soldier-sues-fountain-swat-after-legal-pot-grow-raid\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>A former special forces infantryman, who was awarded the Bronze Star and uses marijuana to treat PTSD after tours to Iraq and Bosnia, has sued the Fountain police SWAT team after officers raided his legal marijuana greenhouse.<\/p>\n<p>Eli Olivas and his girlfriend Marisela Chavez sued the city of Fountain and Fountain police Sgt. Matthew Racine, claiming the city failed to properly train its police to investigate pot cases in a state where it\u2019s legal to grow marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>The lawsuit was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Denver by attorney Terrence Johnson. Olivas and Chavez seek compensatory damages of more than $100,000. Olivas, a paramedic, also wants his guns returned: an AK-47 rifle, a 5.56 millimeter Sig Sauer rifle and a Glock 17, court records show Police confiscated the weapons but haven\u2019t returned them, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>Fountain Police Chief Chris Heberer said the department had a valid search warrant signed by a judge.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the end of the day he was safe, the public was safe and we were safe,\u201d Heberer said.<\/p>\n<p>Olivas is a former U.S. Army Special Forces staff sergeant, infantryman, medic and combat veteran. Besides the Bronze Star, he earned numerous other service medals. He also was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder linked to combat.<\/p>\n<p>Olivas is a registered medical marijuana patient with a permit to grow up to 99 marijuana plants for his own treatment of PTSD. He was growing 18 marijuana plants behind a locked, 6-foot privacy fence. The plants were further enclosed in a greenhouse walled with opaque glass.<\/p>\n<p>At 6 a.m. on July 22, 2016, a Fountain SWAT team raided Olivas\u2019 home with a warrant for marijuana, firearms and ammunition. They used a flash-bang device. The warrant was based on weak and untrustworthy evidence, the lawsuit says.Using a flash-bang explosion during the raid was part of a \u201cblatant display of violence and abuse of authority,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t shoot,\u201d yelled Olivas, dressed only in underwear, when he saw SWAT officers pointing assault rifles at him with fingers on triggers. Police handcuffed Olivas and Chavez, who was wearing only a nightgown, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe unconscionable aggression of the police would have traumatized any person, but given plaintiff Olivas\u2019 history serving his country in combat, it affected him exponentially more severely and it has caused a relapse of his PTSD symptoms,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>The officers made Olivas and Chavez sit within a few feet of the exhaust pipe on a running police vehicle. Chavez had a prior shoulder injury and told the officers, but they handcuffed her anyway causing further physical injuries, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was no evidence that she committed a crime, she posed no immediate threat to the safety of the officers and she did not actively resist arrest or attempt to evade arrest by flight,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>Olivas and Chavez began to experience symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning including difficulty seeing, faintness, nausea and headaches. With his medical training, Olivas knew the dangerous signs of poisoning, but his request to be moved away from the fumes was refused. He stood up to get fresh air and was ordered to sit down.<\/p>\n<p>The officers destroyed one of Olivas\u2019 gates to enter the fence. They issued a summons and complaint for an illegal marijuana grow even though Olivas had a legal permit, the lawsuit says. The summons was never filed in court, but Olivas still was forced to hire an attorney.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt all times relevant herein, the individual defendants acted intentionally, willfully and wantonly, maliciously, and with reckless disregard for and deliberate indifference to the plaintiff\u2019s rights,\u201d the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>The episode involving Olivas wasn\u2019t an isolated event. It was symptomatic of Fountain\u2019s failure to train officers how to investigate marijuana cases, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n<p>All the officers had to do was check whether Olivas had a legal permit to grow marijuana, the lawsuit says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>A former special forces infantryman, who won the Bronze Star and uses marijuana to treat PTSD after tours to Iraq and Bosnia, has sued the Fountain police SWAT team after officers raided his legal marijuana greenhouse <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6811,6897,6813,77,6814,6999,6815,56,9,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[6816,6898,6818,2655,6819,7000,6820,2636,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}