Pima Sheriff's Department ordered to pay couple $1.25 million

A federal jury awarded a Tucson couple more than $1 million in damages for being detained by sheriff’s deputies during a raid on their home that stemmed from a fake 911 call.

On April 22, a U.S. District Court jury ordered the Pima County Sheriff’s Department to pay Rob and Jill Larson $1.25 million, after deciding that deputies violated the couple’s constitutional rights, said the Larsons’ attorney, Michael Garth Moore, in a news release. The trial was held before U.S. District Judge David Bury.

On May 23, 2013, the Sheriff’s Department received a 911 call from a person reporting a confrontation with gunfire across the street from his residence. Deputies went to the home southwest of Tucson, Moore said.

The Larsons, who were sleeping at the time, were awakened and opened the door when they heard deputies “banging and screaming.” They were handcuffed and placed into a department vehicle outside the home, Moore said.

Deputies began searching their home but stopped the search when the 911 caller informed them they had the wrong house. The Larsons, however, were detained while another nearby home was searched, Moore said.

The occupants of the second home were also handcuffed and questioned outside the house while the residence was searched, according to court documents.

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After finding nothing in the second house, the raid was called off when a search of the department’s database revealed that the person who called 911 had repeatedly made false 911 calls, Moore said. That man, identified in court documents as William Warfe Jr., was a neighbor of the Larsons.

In addition, the caller had been transported by sheriff’s deputies to a mental-health crisis center days before the raid, Moore said. The original complaint said sheriff’s deputies went to the trailer park where Warfe lived numerous times dealing with baseless 911 calls. The park’s manager had also called deputies just days before the raid to complain about Warfe “terrorizing the trailer park,” the original court complaint said.

All of the encounters with Warfe were entered into a sheriff’s database, the document states.

“The jury concluded that the deputies acted according to a long-held practice of Pima County in ignoring evidence that revealed 911 calls to be fake,” Moore said. “The Larsons hope that this victory will convince the sheriff to implement policies that prevent the abuse they suffered.”

When asked if the department has changed its procedures since the 2013 incident, Deputy Courtney Rodriguez, a department spokeswoman, said the agency was not able to discuss the case or “anything surrounding it.”