Another bullshit passive-voice headline. Written implying the fault was not with the LAPD.
“LAPD officers destroy MRI machine in bungled pot raid”
One LAPD officer, “dangling a rifle in his right hand, with an unsecured strap, approached the MRI Office” and glanced at the large warning sign on the door that read: ‘Warning. Magnetic Field. High Frequency Yield. Metal Parts and Medical Instruments of All Types prohibited.’" He then walked into the MRI Office, according to the lawsuit.
It’s better than the title implies. They also broke the MRI machine because they hit emergency stop buttons instead of stopping for a couple seconds to ask how to safely handle removing the gun.
(I’m not sure the cost difference between a graceful shutdown and an e-stop and can’t find information, but if it’s 250k worth of fix, I’m betting it’s significant.)
My uncle is a medical equipment installer that installs and calibrates MRI machines.
The issue is more than just the physical damage, which can be expensive, these machines take a long time to calibrate to the local environment. If the electromagnets are damaged, the whole set needs to be replaced, as they are manufactured in matching batches.
It’s like if you damage a piston in an engine, it will cause damage to the crank shaft, which will also damage the rest of the engine. It’s a helluva job to fix.
And they were there because the energy use of the MRI made them suspect it was a pot farm… in a legal state.
I agree with the legal state part, but it was not the energy use of the MRI; it was BS’d from the following:
“Franco conducted surveillance on multiple dates in 2023, reporting the ‘distinct odor of live cannabis plant and not the odor of dried cannabis being smoked,’ tinted windows–which he attributed to efforts to conceal cannabis cultivation, security cameras– which he associated with locations where cannabis is grown to prevent theft, and two individuals in similar attire at the premises – whom he concluded were performing maintenance or expanding the cultivation operation,” the lawsuit alleges.
Why would you conduct a raid without even finding out what the official listing for an address says they do there. Because in this case the bare minimum could have been 2 uniformed cops just ringing the bell… or an undercover/plain clothes cop making an appointment. But no… dicks out… full raid… probably good overtime.
Tinted windows, security cameras, and uniforms…rock solid proof of a weed farm. /s
That describes 90% of the businesses I shop at.
Sounds like you buy a lot of weed.
Distinct odor of live cannabis
I have no idea what that smells like, but this smells like a bunch of crap
The icing on the cake: „After retrieving his rifle, the officer is said to have accidentally left a magazine full of bullets on the floor of the MRI room.“
Next to the clown shoes, squeaky red nose, and rainbow afro wig, I assume. Unreal.
Yeah, and the magnet was not to blame for this incident despite how the title of this article reads. Given all the (alleged, I guess) facts of the case, I’m pretty sure sure the cops showed up in a clown car that played Yackety Sax when the horn was pressed.
All the helium offgassed instead of being reclaimed so…
IIRC the emergency stop vents the liquid helium, that’s a lot of the cost I imagine.
The biggest problem is that the magnets will “quench”, which is what happens when a superconducting electromagnet suddenly stops being superconducting.
There’s a lot of energy stored in that magnet, and when it quenches the energy all turns to heat in a very short time. Any remaining helium will flash boil, turning into an explosive expansion of gas, and the thermal shock will seriously damage the machine
Which, in older machines, might happily pump a fuckton of gaseous helium into the room, potentially creating overpressure and squeezing the door shut while people suffocate.
Can we just stop prosecuting people for having weed, which is a harmless plant.
Lose your rifle, lose your job. Simple as.
Zero tolerance is never good. But this example of stupidity should have at least lose the officer his gun privilege and relegate him to a desk job.
Are you saying you have zero tolerance for zero tolerance?
LoL… intolerant of intolerance… but yeah.
Life is messy and hardly ever black or white. Zero tolerance is just lazy leadership.
