Bumbling US cops who raided a medical diagnostics center thinking it was a cannabis farm got a gun stuck to the powerful magnets of an MRI machine, a California lawsuit has alleged.After bursting into the diagnostics center in October last year, the SWAT team found only offices, a single employee and medical devices, including a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machine, a diagnostic tool that uses high-powered magnets to create detailed scans of a patient's body.

Bumbling US cops who raided a medical diagnostics center thinking it was a cannabis farm got a gun stuck to the powerful magnets of an MRI machine, a California lawsuit has alleged.

The owners of the facility are claiming damages against the Los Angeles Police Department for an operation their lawyers describe as “nothing short of a disorganized circus.”

Their lawsuit details how a SWAT team swarmed Noho Diagnostic Center after the squad’s leader persuaded a magistrate to issue a search warrant.

Officer Kenneth Franco drew on his “twelve hours of narcotics training” and discovered the facility was using more electricity than nearby stores, the lawsuit said.

“Officer Franco, therefore, concluded (the facility) was cultivating cannabis, disregarding the fact that it is a diagnostic facility utilizing an MRI machine, X-ray machine and other heavy medical equipment – unlike the surrounding businesses selling flowers, chocolates and children’s merchandise,” the suit said.

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  • mlg@lemmy.worldEnglish
    503·
    1 day ago

    If I ever saw a building using more power, my automatic assumption would be a big machine is inside.

    If it were ridiculously high, then my next guess would be a crypto mining farm.

    Ain’t no way modern LED lamps for growing plants gonna be drawing that much power.

    Not to mention any of these fools could have just as easily sent someone inside to check. Or if they really wanted to play coppers so bad, book a fake appointment or even just pretend to be a news agency to ask for a tour.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
      7·
      20 hours ago

      Even worse - they knew full-well that it was a medical office by the point this happened. He was just poking around the expensive shit when he lost his gun.

      And then he burned probably millions of dollars when he pushed the purge button.

    • Johnmannesca@lemmy.world
      8·
      22 hours ago

      They didn’t wanna play private investigator, plus there’s extra legal shielding for a cop to be a dumbass than for them to actually know their stuff; it’s also not very likely of them to have a higher level education either sadly. Maybe they attend PragerU or something to pretend intelligence.

      • JordanZ@lemmy.world
        5·
        19 hours ago

        You don’t just like roll an MRI machine into a building. There were probably several permits issued by the city that they could have looked up just like they did the power usage…but nah. Raiders gotta raid.

        • Johnmannesca@lemmy.world
          3·
          17 hours ago

          If their DoorDash/UberEats driver had 12 hours of experience, they’d complain and probably get them fired after they give enough low ratings. If they were working based on a public rating system they would already be fired.

    • Revan343@lemmy.ca
      12·
      1 day ago

      Depends on the scale; modern LEDs just means you can make the farm bigger for the same level of power consumption. There’s also dehumidifiers, which suck a decent amount of power because they’re basically AC units.

      Still, I think crypto farm would be my first guess if there’s no obvious other reason for the power usage (which in this case there is, it’s a fucking medical imaging place)