Long Beach Medical Marijuana Dispensary Guard Unlawfully Arrested

Allegations by a marijuana dispensary security guard claiming Thursday that he was unlawfully arrested by Long Beach police come on the heels of another dispensary employee filing a $1 million claim of excessive force against Long Beach officers involved in a pot-shop raid on June 19.

Michael Tart, a licensed security guard for Nature Cann Collective in Long Beach, was released from jail Thursday shortly before 4 a.m. and was back at work that afternoon.

Surveillance video of the dispensary shows Tart being whisked away from his post by Long Beach police on July 3.

“They get away with too much,” Tart said.

Tart said police did not read him his rights or present a warrant for his arrest. Rather, they told him he was being arrested for failing to appear in court for his misdemeanors, which include improper insignia on his uniform and smoking a cigarette too close to a building.

Sheriff’s inmate records show Tart was booked into custody on misdemeanor charges on May 15 and July 3.

“In my personal opinion, they do not like the fact we’re here; they don’t want us here,” Tart said.

Tart is planning to file a claim of unlawful arrest against the city.

Tart’s attorney, Michael Pappas, also represents Dorian Brooks, a volunteer employee at THC Downtown collective who claims Long Beach officers injured him, violated his rights and violated the state’s disables person’s act during a June raid.

“The city won’t issue any permits for medical cannabis collectives,” Pappas said. “It has banned them outright in violation of state law,” Pappas said.

Pappas claims to have received similarly confrontational treatment from Long Beach police.

The city “refused to issue me a business license and then its officers came in and charge me with misdemeanors to get me out of the city,” Pappas said.

Long Beach police officials and city councilmembers declined to comment on any of those incidents.

On Thursday, Brooks’ lawyers filed a claim seeking $1 million in damages from the city of Long Beach alleging that the police raid on the shop was illegal and that officers involved used excessive force.

“In terms of the excessive force claim, we will investigate that aspect of it,” Long Beach City Attorney Robert E. Shannon told NBC4.

Shannon said that the Long Beach Police Department is also mulling whether to open a criminal investigation into the activities of the medical marijuana dispensary and police are considering an internal investigation into the officers’ conduct during the raid.

The bust was caught on surveillance cameras which show an officer apparently stepping on Dorian’s back and neck before handcuffing him. Two officers, one of whom appears to be undercover, are seen in the video smashing the cameras.

Video of the raid — which ended in the arrests of five men on suspicion of operating a marijuana dispensary without a license — was posted by YouTube user “Long Beach Raids” on July 1. Officials said they learned about the video on July 3.

An advocate for medical marijuana dispensary owners and workers criticized the officers’ conduct.

“That behavior is so blatant it cannot be the first time,” said Steven Downing, a retired Los Angeles Police Department deputy chief and current board member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.”It was arrogant. It was unnecessary and it was brutal.”

Original Surveillance Footage of LB Police Raiding Dispensary.

LBPD Sued For Use of Excessive Force in Medical Marijuana Dispensary Raid

The Long Beach Police Department is investigating claims that officers used excessive force during a June raid of a medical marijuana dispensary.

Surveillance video shot at the THC Downtown Collective in Long Beach, Calif. shows one of the more than a dozen officers that participated in the raid stepping on a volunteer’s back with both feet and stepping on his neck while arresting him. The man, Dorian Brooks, had surrendered to police on camera.

In the video, another officer is later seen destroying a surveillance camera at the dispensary with a metal pole. However, NBC Los Angeles reports that the video was being recorded off site.

The video was posted to YouTube on July 1 by user “Long Beach Raids,” and came to the attention of officials on July 3, police told NBC Los Angeles.

Employees of the dispensary are claiming $10,000 in damage and destruction of evidence in addition to allegations of police brutality.

“A thorough review into what occurred during that operation will be conducted once all of the facts have been collected,” a police spokesperson said in a prepared statement, calling the incident “a personnel matter.”

Police said that the dispensary had been operating under state compliance, but did not have a permit from the city of Long Beach.

In October of last year, a California appeals court ruling outlawed the city’s permit system for pot distributers, though a reprieve was granted to 18 collectives in February, according to the Contra Costa Times.

On Tuesday, the Long Beach City Council narrowly voted down an extension for those permits, which could spell doom for the city’s short-lived legal marijuana industry when the reprieve expires on August 12.

An attorney for Brooks told NBC Los Angeles that the dispensary was denied a permit by the city.

The raid on the THC Downtown Collective was part of a wider crackdown by law enforcement across California. In June, federal authorities arrested six peopleassociated with a chain of Southern California dispensaries owned by G3 Holistic, Inc. In April, police in Oakland arrested 11 people and seized more than $1 million in cannabis.