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During the incident, Clearlake Police – responding to a 911 call – arrived at the location and approached the house with guns drawn, meeting with undercover narcotics agents, as Lake County News has reported.
Interim Clearlake Police Chief Craig Clausen had told Lake County News in a Friday interview that he and his staff were not notified of the operation, and he said a “confrontation” resulted when four of his officers and a sergeant arrived at the home.
Sheriff Frank Rivero said the situation was overblown.
“There was no armed confrontation. That was bullshit,” he said.
Rivero said that an undercover Sheriff's Narcotics Task Force operation had led his deputies into the city of Clearlake.
He had told Lake County News on Friday that they had made a “buy” of about one ounce of crank. However, on Saturday he denied making that statement.
Instead, he said his deputies had interrupted a meth sale and intercepted the drugs from a low-level dealer.
Sgt. Jim Samples, who oversees the sheriff's narcotics unit, said Saturday that the task force got an ounce of drugs from the dealer in the Yuba College parking lot after performing a probation search on him.
From that encounter, they developed information that a large amount of methamphetamine was supposed to be delivered in about 20 minutes to a home on 19th Avenue, Samples said.
They took the suspect with them to the home, where they encountered the man's girlfriend. Samples said that resulted in a 911 call to Clearlake Police.
Clausen said the woman called 911 shortly before 9 p.m. to report that her boyfriend had been handcuffed by three large male subjects and she was told to get out of the house “because bad things were going to happen.”
Samples said he was not at the scene but was staged down the road at St. Helena Hospital Clearlake.
He said Clearlake Police responded down 18th Avenue, passing the sheriff's marked units before turning down 19th Avenue.
Samples said his deputies saw the police officers approaching the house, their guns drawn, and started shouting that they were with the sheriff's office.
The officers got up to the house and started knocking but when they saw the sheriff's badges, the police holstered their guns, said Samples.
“This whole thing is blown up into a big standoff that didn’t happen. None of my guys drew their gun,” Samples said, adding that they wouldn't draw weapons on uniformed police officers.
He said there was no search warrant for the 19th Avenue house and one wasn't needed due to the suspect's probation status.
Two men supposed to deliver the methamphetamine showed up, were detained and their homes were subsequently locked down by law enforcement. Samples said search warrants were signed by a local judge at about 3:30 a.m. Friday for those two homes.
Samples acknowledged that the Clearlake Police Department was not notified of the operation.
“The decision was made above me not to call because it was happening so fast,” Samples said.
“There was no order that you will not tell them, he just made a decision,” said Samples. “I stick by his decision.”
Samples said both Clearlake Police and the narcotics unit acted appropriately, but noted there is a certain danger to such operations, which take place all the time.
“We were in there last week working doing basically the same thing,” Samples said.
Samples called the unit's encounter with the armed officers a “one in a million thing” that he'd not experienced before.
Operations often develop quickly, said Samples, and not everyone is notified. “It's not a great way of doing it but sometimes it happens.”
He said he hopes to avoid future conflicts with any agency, adding that agencies conduct operations in other jurisdictions all the time. Asked if there is a protocol or requirement for notification, he said there wasn't one.
Samples said in such drug operations law enforcement has to move quickly and sometimes mistakes are made.
Clausen had said Friday that he was concerned about safety on all sides because of how the operation was carried out without notification to his department.
“We're going to get officers and deputies hurt by doing this and that concerns me,” he said.
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