

When police are sued in court alleging they engaged in improper law enforcement tactics, the plaintiffs are usually civilians claiming their rights were trampled.



In an ironic twist, a Portland police sergeant sued two co-workers in federal court last fall -- accusing a city police detective and an officer of violating his constitutional rights when they searched his Washington home in April 2010.



The suit is unusual in that an active sergeant sued two lower-ranking officers, questioning tactics that are used in policing every day. His lawsuit also lays bare the inquiry by Portland Police Bureau officials into one of their own, details that normally don't see the light of day.



Sgt. Richard Braskett argued that Det. Celeste Fender and Officer Nathan Tobey breached his Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures by entering his home without his consent or a warrant.



He accused the investigators of illegally searching his medicine cabinet and taking prescription records, going through his garbage and retrieving his handgun from his bedroom dresser. At the time, Braskett was under investigation for alleged prescription drug abuse.



An assistant city attorney countered that Fender and Tobey did not need a search warrant because Braskett's wife had given them consent to enter the home.



Yet Braskett's lawyer contended that Portland officers used a ruse to get into the sergeant's home by telling his wife they were concerned about her safety, and Braskett's wife was not capable of giving consent, particularly when it came to Braskett's bedroom dresser and prescription pill bottles.



After nearly a year of legal wrangling, the case culminated this month, with U.S. Magistrate Judge Dennis J. Hubel ruling that the consent of Braskett's wife was valid and sufficient.



The lawsuit stemmed from Portland police actions in April 2010. That's when a friend of the Braskett couple reported to the bureau concerns of domestic violence and misuse of prescription drugs involving Sgt. Braskett. The friend was a former Portland police reserve officer.



On April 12, 2010, the bureau took Braskett off the street and placed him on desk duty. That night, a supervisor sent Fender and Tobey, who worked in the bureau's Domestic Violence Reduction Unit, to the Braskett home. No one came to the door, so the two officers returned to the home the next day. They identified themselves as Portland police and told Braskett's wife they wanted to talk about him and make sure she and the children were safe, according to undisputed accounts in court records.



Braskett's wife invited the officers in and talked with them at the kitchen table. Braskett's wife told them she was relieved to talk to somebody from the bureau. She said she believed her husband was abusing prescription pills and had asked him to move out a day or so earlier, according to her deposition. She said there was no physical violence.



She told them she believed her husband was stressed from a prior case when Braskett supervised the Gang Enforcement Team and was investigated for a controversial raid of a home that resulted in a man killing himself. She told the officers she began hiding her own prescribed Vicodin pills so Braskett wouldn't take them, according to court records.



The officers asked Braskett's wife if there were any firearms in the house. Braskett's wife led them to the master bedroom, and Tobey removed a gun from Braskett's dresser. The officer unloaded it and placed the gun in a safe in the couple's garage at the request of Braskett's wife, court records show.



Fender and Tobey later explained in court documents that their supervisor asked them to return to Braskett's house the next day to find proof that Braskett had his own prescription for the drugs he was using, so that the bureau could close out the case without criminal charges.



When Fender and Tobey arrived, they told Braskett's wife what they needed. She pulled out her husband's pill bottles from their medicine cabinet and showed them to Fender, who wrote down the label information.



In addition, Braskett's wife told investigators she suspected her husband had thrown some of his Vicodin bottles in the trash, court records show. She led the officers to a trash can in the garage. The investigators found several of his empty Vicodin bottles discarded in a clear plastic bag and took them.



About two weeks later, a Multnomah County prosecutor advised Det. Fender in an e-mail, without naming Braskett, that the district attorney's office likely would not prosecute someone in his situation. Without more evidence, the prosecutor wrote, it would be impossible to prove whose pills a man was possessing if he and his wife each had a prescription for the same drug.



This month, Judge Hubel ruled that Braskett's lawsuit could not proceed to trial. "There is no material issue of fact that Mrs. Braskett had 'common authority' over all areas of the residence, and thus was able to validly consent to the defendants' search of the residence," Hubel wrote in his ruling.



Braskett completed treatment for alcohol and prescription drug abuse. By January 2011, members of a police review board recommended a 20-hour suspension without pay after he admitted to consuming drugs that were prescribed to another person. The board found he also failed to notify his supervisor that he was taking prescription pills that might interfere with his work. It's not clear from police records whether Braskett ever faced the suspension.



Now, Braskett is back to work as an East Precinct patrol sergeant and back together with his wife.



Despite the recommended discipline, the board commended Braskett for seeking treatment.





