Civil rights complaint filed by SCWW defendants against VCSO, DA, VC

January 29, 2016
Santa Paula News

At   a press conference Thursday morning — just steps away from the monument honoring fallen firefighters — an attorney outlined a civil rights complaint against the County of Ventura, District Attorney Greg Totten, prosecutors and investigators as well as Sheriff Geoff Dean and members of his staff. 

Attorney Stephen Larson, representing Dean Poe and family members as well as David Wirsing, staged the press conference to address the complaint on behalf of his clients; Poe and Wirsing are defendants in the controversial explosions and fire at Santa Clara Waste Water in November 2014 that left dozens injured, including three Santa Paula firefighters.

Larson alleges that his clients were being retaliated against with actions that included “unlawful and demeaning jailhouse strip and visual cavity searches,” when they were arrested on criminal charges related to the SWCC incident. 

In addition, Larson said armed investigators removed a “terrified six-year-old girl from her home and detained her in a SWAT vehicle” during the raid on one home.

The actions he said at the January 28 press conference are reflective of the rise of militarization of police agencies and although warranted in some cases where those targeted are believed to violent and perhaps armed, this was not the case with his clients.

Raids, he noted, “Were for business records,” and related materials.  

Overall, since the explosions occurred Larson said the Ventura County law enforcement has violated his clients’ civil rights by subjecting them to “intimidation, retaliation and harassment…”

Such alleged actions followed the “Very terrible fire,” at SCWW that Larson said was accidental that left members of the public safety community injured.

“What followed was acts of retaliation to mete out justice to those individuals,” the law enforcement community targeted as causing mass injury including “two dozen SWAT members going out with a battering ram” to gain entry to his clients’ homes.

Larson said the there has been “misconduct” in the District Attorney’s Office, which has suppressed evidence in the case and led to the removal of one prosecutor.

And, he added, subjecting his clients’ to strip and body cavity searches “is beyond the balance of human decency…”

Poe and Wirsing were among the nine SCWW officials and managers   charged — along with the business entities SCWW and Green Compass — with 71 felony and misdemeanor counts related to the November 18,2014 explosions and fire.

This story will be updated.





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