I’ll be in federal court tomorrow, Monday, February 3, for a pretrial hearing in the other Putnam County case with a video, and will potentially be meeting with additional witnesses afterwards, if there’s time.  If you have information, please let me know.

A few days back I had to trim the video in order to take out the local TV coverage of the task force guys, where they’re walking around the trailer park, banging on doors, etc. They claimed copyright on the footage and threatened to sick their lawyers on me.  So I just took that part down.  But I assume that you can find it on their site if you look for it. At some point, I’m sure it will be evidence of record anyways.

Since the original video was uploaded, the Putnam County Sheriff has ordered an internal investigation. Right now we’re awaiting the results of that investigation, and also proceeding with our own.

I have personally met with investigators, and have provided them whatever they wanted out of my file.  I also made my client and an eyewitness available to them for questioning.  I also have received yet another video showing them inside an individual’s home, and I have also provided that to the investigators – with the individual’s consent, of course. Numerous other people have contacted us in regards to other situations involving this same group of guys, and I’m still in the process of speaking to them all.

Here are a few more photos which address important aspects of the situation. Here’s where the Putnam County Special Enforcement Unit cut the lock on my client’s gate at the end of driveway, before driving towards the house in a white truck, and what appears to be two black Ford Explorer unmarked police cruisers.

Here’s where the police officers climbed through the window to get inside the house.  They pushed in a window unit air condition. It was actually one of those indoor ACs, but it still requires a window unit for exhaust and drainage. This photos were taken immediately following the search.

Here’s where they yanked the surveillance camera cord. It’s of the type that has two plugs. One of the plugs was pulled out, and the other was ripped in half, leaving the connector still in place.

How do we know it wasn’t already like that? Remember the part of the video where the guy in the SWAT outfit was walking across the bridge? (5:41 in the video) When he gets to the end of the bridge, it freezes. That’s this actual camera. And the point at which it freezes is when the damage occurs to the camera. I originally thought that camera had survived.  But no, that one was actually severed, and you see the moment it was severed.

Here’s the guy walking across the bridge:

And here’s the exact moment that camera was disabled:

As for what their defense is at this point, I don’t know.  But self-proclaimed “Bailiff” of the Putnam Sheriff’s Department did confront me on social media and try to set me straight on the facts, and the law. He implied that the officers entered with the landlord’s consent. The only problem with that is, a landlord cannot authorize law enforcement to search their tenant’s residence. That’s Fourth Amendment 101, which is why a search warrant is still required even to search the hotel room of an overnight guest (minus a ticking time bomb or something) They can’t just ask the hotel manager for permission to search. A warrant is still required. Secondly, the landlord was questioned very early on, and denied knowing anything about it. That may have been a lie.  But if it was, then they can point fingers at each other when it comes time to be placed under oath. But it still won’t be a defense to an illegal search by law enforcement.

As for a criminal investigation, I have no knowledge of any agency investigating them criminally.  That doesn’t mean it’s not happening. But nobody has notified myself, nor my client, of there being one. That’s why I believe it’s important to share this information with the public. In the end, the citizens should be informed of what their government is doing. Or not doing.