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Employee Alerts Police to Drug Suspects
2/5/03

By Kevin Cole

[WIBC News] - An alert Meijer employee is being crediting with alerting police to a possible methamphetamine lab in the making.

When a customer purchased six boxes of cold medication, the employee became suspicious and called police. Detectives say the employee also provided them with a description of the suspect and the vehicle he was driving.

Fishers police then followed the vehicle on 96th street, and stopped the car for a traffic violation.

Police say a drug sniffing dog indicated there were narcotics in the car and a further search found 76 boxes of decongestant, or pseudo-ephedrine, 4 bottles of starter fluid, and one bottle of butane - all materials used to make methamphetamine.

Police say they also found meth in the car, and almost four thousand dollars on Kenneth and Polly Rector. They were arrested and sent to the Hamilton County jail.

Landlords can't win today:

Lawsuit claims police wrongly beat landlord during raid

Associated Press

Last updated 11:54 AM, EST, Friday, February 07, 2003

hamtctd
CROWN POINT, Ind. (AP) -- A man who says he was beaten by Lake County police officers during a raid at a house he owns has filed a lawsuit against the department.

Curtis Smith, 47, of Gary claims in the lawsuit that two Lake County officers used excessive force during a raid at the home on Feb. 15, 2001.

Smith owned the home and was renting it to two men. He was at the home to fix the furnace when several members of a police tactical unit broke down a rear door and ordered the three men onto the floor.

When Smith did not immediately comply, he was struck, knocked to the ground and kicked, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in Lake Superior Court. He was arrested for resisting arrest and taken to Lake County Jail.

Police officials said officers had twice bought drugs from people at the house, but a search of the house turned up no drugs and no drug paraphernalia.

Smith was struck during the raid, police said, because he refused to obey several orders to lie on the ground. Two other men in the house complied, were not struck and were not arrested.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages.

Former Sheriff John Buncich, who led the department at the time of the raid and who is named in the lawsuit, said when Smith first made his claims that they were politically motivated lies.

Smith's brother is a county jail officer and supported Rogelio Dominguez for sheriff in his successful Democratic primary campaign against Buncich's police chief, Miguel Arredondo.

Smith was hospitalized for five days and was treated for multiple head injuries, his lawyer said, including a broken nose and a fracture to his left eye socket that required surgery to repair.