In this article, Castillo’s family continues to maintain that he was unarmed, and shot as he was rising from his bed, awoken to screams from his sister. The article reiterates the presence of the 1-year-old child in the home during the raid, and confirms that it was a forced entry raid.

There seems to be some ambiguity about whether or not drugs were found in the home. The DA says there were. But the family spokesman from the Hispanic advocacy group LULAC said in the Houston Chronicle yesterday that he’s seen the warrant (and, one would guess, the return sheets), and that no drugs were found. That the DA’s office won’t say what type or quantity of drugs were found is suspicious. That kind of thing is generally announced right away. The local Wharton paper reported the day of the raid that two men, including Castillo’s father, were arrested. That’s the only account I’ve seen thus far that mentions arrests. Of course, whether or not any drugs were actually found doesn’t negate the unnecessary tragedy of a 17-year-old kid getting shot in the face.

Today’s article in the Victoria Advocate also indicates that the raid was based on a tip from –surprise! — a confidential informant who claims to have observed drugs being sold from the home, and an observation by one officer that there was lots of traffic going to and from the house. No controlled buys. No mention of a prior record. The article doesn’t mention if the officer gave justification for a forced entry raid in the affidavit.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 16th, 2007 at 7:36 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Police Informants, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.