In what has been described as a case of “bad judgment”, Polk County, Florida police were caught on camera playing a Nintendo Wii during the search of a home.

It has been revealed that drug task force members began playing drug dealer Michael Difalco’s Wii within 20 minutes of entering his home. The action was captured by a webcam connected to a computer in Difalco’s home. The Wii Bowling session lasted approximately one hour.

Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who described the situation as “an embarrassment” has denied that it will invalidate the search:

That absolutely is not true; that doesn’t invalidate the search at all. Now the defendant would like for it to invalidate the search, but unfortunately for him, it won’t.

He went on to explain his thoughts on the situation:

I’m not pleased that they played that Wii bowling game. That is not appropriate conduct at a search warrant. But I am less pleased with the supervision that didn’t walk in and say, turn that off. That’s what supervision should have done.

Detectives recovered methamphetamine, marijuana, drug paraphernalia and stolen property worth more than $30,000 from the home. Difalco faces 11 charges following the nine hour search that involved 13 detectives and three sergeants.

Lakeland Police Chief Roger Boatner offered his view:

It was an expansive scene, a lot of searching to be done, a lot of waiting. The nature of a search warrant is hurry up and wait,” Judd said. “Am I trying to defend the fact that they were bowling, not at all. That was inappropriate.

A defense attorney unrelated to the case, Rick Escobar, offered his view, saying that it effectively turned the raid into an illegal search:

I’ve never seen anything like this. All the citizens are thinking, ‘Wait a minute, we are paying these people to go out and protect us and here they are playing bowling on our time.

The real question here is have they seized property that wasn’t described in the search warrant? Clearly if they’re using it, they’ve seized it and for totally improper purposes, because it’s for entertainment. Investigations are not for entertainment.

[TBO via Geekologie]

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