Caught on Video: the Putnam County WV Sheriff Dept. Special Task Force breaks into a house



(UPDATE VIDEO 2/22/20: https://youtu.be/RpA1eQMrTBI)

(Edited 1/27/20: That local news channel made me take down the ending with their clip in it……so you’ll have to use your imagination. Think Reno 911, SEU edition.)

The Putnam County WV Sheriff’s Department showed up at my client’s house in August of 2019, purportedly to serve a civil lawsuit summons, but with nobody home, apparently climbed through the window and searched inside the house, pulling out the guy’s firearms, going through his drawers, looking under his mattress, and ransacking his house.

Apparently looking drugs, but finding none, they even seized his dead friend’s ashes and ran it through a field test kit for illegal drugs. When it came back negative, the man found bits and pieces of his dead friend’s bones inside the discarded kits, just thrown on the ground. He came home to find his firearms laid out on his stove, and elsewhere, and his place trashed, essentially.

They left no search warrant. There apparently was no search warrant. A FOIA request to the sheriff’s department revealed there are no records whatsoever from the incident. No search warrant, no police report, nothing. Here’s the state law on police officers executing search warrants:

§62-1A-4. Same — Execution and return with inventory.

The warrant may be executed and returned only within ten days after its date. The officer taking property under the warrant shall give to the person from whom or from whose premises the property is taken a copy of the warrant and a receipt for the property taken; or if the person from whose premises the property is taken is not present at the time, the officer shall leave the copy and receipt at the place from which the property is taken. The return shall be made promptly and shall be accompanied by a written inventory of any property taken. The judge or magistrate shall upon request deliver a copy of the inventory to the person from whom or from whose premises the property was taken.

This video hasn’t been seen anywhere else until now. We will be filing a federal lawsuit in the near future, and are seeking additional information and witnesses. Also other similar incidents, if you know of any.

If you have any information, please contact us by phone at 304-772-4999, or by email at jhb@johnbryanlaw.com.

Check for updates at https://thecivilrightslawyer.com

Also we’re on Facebook: @johnbryanlaw (https://www.facebook.com/JohnBryanLaw/)

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32 thoughts on “Caught on Video: the Putnam County WV Sheriff Dept. Special Task Force breaks into a house”

  1. This is the type of thing you see when cops think you have drugs and they want them for themselves. They probably left those guns out as a warning that he better give them their cut.

  2. For some of you seeing a confederate flag, and finding that distasteful, I do too, …but that does not make this okay to search this persons home with out a warrant. This is what fascists do. This is so wrong on so many levels.

  3. If those cops came in to the house unannounced, while the homeowner was in another room or asleep in bed, Then seeing 2 men in his house and being afraid for his could has shot and killed the 2 cops and not be convicted of murder. if they had found anything illegal it would be thrown out of court, because they didn't have a search warrant.

  4. I should have know that it's West Virginia again. The cops there are just like the cops of the Old South who believe they are the law, not law enforcement, but the law. Citizens there must make the correction or live like subjects of the Sheriff of Nottingham. Is W. Virginia nothing but a bunch of uneducated, hillbillies. Is that the reason they keep electing spineless Senator Joe Manchin? Do they have any self respect?

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