For those of you who haven’t been following the story, a couple of months ago police officers raided a dispensary in Santa Ana, California and were caught on camera eating the dispensary’s edibles, having fun playing darts, and making rude comments about a wheelchair-bound patient who was inside the dispensary during the raid. Like this wasn’t nasty enough, the officers then sued their own department to prevent the video footage of them from being used as evidence. They argued that they were being recorded without their knowledge or consent. Mind you, these guys looked for the surveillance cameras at the beginning of their raid, but failed to locate them.
A judge weighed in on the restraining order
Besides the restraining order, the Orange County Superior Court judge Ronald Bauer also permitted the use of the footage in police investigation. He politely explained that officer’s expectation of privacy is highly questionable because of one simple reason – they were on a duty! “While the officers have declared that they expected privacy, the court has concluded that they had no objectively reasonable expectation that their words and actions would not be observed. They should not expect privacy in their on-duty performance of an official function at a marijuana dispensary. They have made no claim that their work required secrecy or that it would be impeded by public review,” – the judge said. The officers will continue to fight this bizarre case, however, their police department is already facing a federal lawsuit from the dispensary.
