Legal Question in Civil Rights Law in California

Re: SDPD Illegal Entry

The claims procedure can be very complicated, and the deadlines are sometimes difficult to understand. You need to contact an attorney in your area who practices in the area of civil rights violations. If you miss a deadline, even if you have a valid claim, you will be barred from pursuing them.

Re: SDPD Illegal Entry

I agree with what the other Mr. Hoffman (no relation) has said.

You say that "the police admitted wrong-doing", but I think you are making a logical leap. Admitting they were wrong is *not* equivalent to admitting that they acted wrongfully. Mistakes happen, and an honest mistake is not wrongful conduct.

If the SDPD's actions were reasonable based upon the information they had and if the error which gave them this information was an honest mistake, then they have not acted wrongfully. They may have been negligent and you may have a strong claim on that basis, but you seem to believe you have a claim for intentional wrongdoing and my sense is that you don't.

I see another problem with your potential claim, though if I had more information I might see things differently. You say that your mother, your brother and his friends were handcuffed, but you don't say anything like this happened to you. All you say about your own experience is that you opened the bathroom door and saw "two men with hands on their guns" -- which suggests that the guns were still in their holsters. I don't see that you have been harmed in any significant way, and if you can't demonstrate some kind of harm then your claim is likely to fail. The people who were handcuffed would each have a stronger argument, but you can't make a claim based upon what happened to them; your claim can only be based upon what happened to you.