Brian Doherty of Hit & Run: "As I've written before, even law-and-order types should be concerned with reckless and murderous police tactics that lead to innocent citizens' deaths, because they can be expensive for local governments (that is, for local taxpayers) when aggrieved citizens fight back their only legal way: with lawsuits."

On the morning of June 27, detectives raided the couple’s home in unincorporated Littlerock, serving a search warrant granted because the property allegedly smelled of the ingredients used to make methamphetamine, according to sheriff’s department officials.

Police found no meth, nor evidence of a meth operation, inside the house. They did find marijuana — in Pate’s son’s room.

The sheriff’s department insists that the marijuana vindicates the raid.

“There was a drug operation that was certainly going on in this house,” said Whitmore.

All in all, it was a bad week of press for Los Angeles cops. One L.A. police lieutenant was arrested for soliciting a prostitute, and another officer has been temporarily relieved of duty after firing his gun in an effort to scare some kids who were bothering him.