Torrie Porter describing the raid on her son's home
Another day,
another dangerous no-knock raid that produces nothing:
This past Friday, February 6th, Wichita residents Taylor Tymony, 22, and Michael Kostelecky, 21, were surprised by Wichita police officers breaking their unlocked door down with a battering ram. The officers charged into the the home the men rent with a third man, Jake Houston, 20, with rifles drawn to serve a search warrant.
Police had been surveilling the home, apparently because one of the men had a prior drug arrest and the house was "too nice." Police did not know the young men were renting the house from the parents of one of the men who lived there. The young men also had a music studio in the house, helping area artists record. The traffic to the house raised eyebrows with the officers who surveilled the house. Assuming the worse, police went in guns blazing.
Listen to Taylor Tymony's mother, Torrie Porter, explain what went down and why she wants answers from the Wichita Police Department:
The officers failed to provide a copy of the search warrant to the men at the time of the raid, and a document obtained from the police by Torrie Porter, Tymony’s mother, claims that the warrant was not presented, because there was no one home when the police entered the house, which was not true.
The men found a copy of the warrant on a counter in the home when they returned from being questioned by police. They also found a burning scarf, which had been left on top of a space heater. If they had been detained any longer, the home may have burnt to the ground.
After trashing the house and nearly burning it down to the ground, Wichita officers left after finding a single piece of one broken marijuana pipe that the men claimed hadn't been used in years. No word on whether any charges have been levied for the broken marijuana pipe.