First, fourteen officers were involved in executing a search warrant? That's seems more than a little excessive.
Brandon Johnson A teenager at the center of a police brutality investigation last year has been arrested and accused of gang activity and drug possession.However, a Marion County deputy prosecutor said the gang charge sought by police against Brandon Johnson likely will be dropped, and the youth's attorney described the police investigation as a vendetta.
"There's been a pattern of harassment against him and his family," attorney Stephen Wagner said. "Had they (the police) done this to any other family, it would be considered outrageous."
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officers arrested Johnson, 16, and two older brothers on preliminary drug, gang and weapons charges during a raid Wednesday night in their Eastside home in the 7700 block of Mountain Stream Way.
Johnson and Miketavious Jackson, 19, were charged preliminarily with felony and misdemeanor possession of marijuana and felony criminal gang activity, according to a police report.
Terrell Jackson, 18, was preliminarily charged with felony criminal gang activity and misdemeanor dangerous possession of a firearm.
Police said they seized an undisclosed amount of marijuana; a .357-caliber revolver; 14 bullets for the gun; a T-shirt and hooded sweatshirt with gang insignia; gang photos and paperwork; a police scanner; and a wooden plaque with a gang symbol.
Fourteen IMPD officers conducted the raid and made the arrests. None of them was involved in Johnson's arrest in May on a disorderly conduct charge, when his face was bloodied and bruised.
Now let's look at what was seized. It was claimed that the gun was the mother's. She supposedly has a hand gun license, although even that is not even necessary for her to have a gun in her home. One of her children though was charged with "misdemeanor dangerous possession of a firearm."
Then you have a T-shirt and hooded sweatshirt with gang insignia, gang photos an paperwork and a wooden plaque with a gang symbol. It is not illegal to be in a gang nor is having items suggesting you are in a gang a crime. I feel fairly certain that any half-way experienced police officer would have known that, which makes it strange that Brandon Johnson was initially charged with felony gang activity, a charge the prosecutor's office now has to immediately and embarrassingly drop.
The only item in the house that was illegal (assuming it was the mother's gun) that was confiscated was the "undisclosed amount of marijuana."
The items that were actually seized - with the exception of the marijuana - were not evidence of a crime. So what items were identified in the search warrant that justified its issuance?
All very strange.