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Artist News Legal
Sheriff defends Bieber raid
By Andy Malt | Published on Friday 17 January 2014
LA County Sheriff’s Lieutenant David Thompson has defended his decision to send a heavy police presence to the home of Justin Bieber earlier this week.
As previously reported, police gained a warrant to search Bieber’s home on Tuesday, following reports that the singer had thrown eggs at a neighbour’s house. In total, twelve detectives raided the singer’s house. But, says Thompson, this was justified because Bieber’s garage is “humongous” and he also has a guesthouse in the garden.
He explained to Fox News: “We were dealing with three locations and we had no idea how many people were in that house. He has had so many people in there before – some tied to guns, drugs and all kinds of things. The decision was based on how many people to expect, which we didn’t know, and it was also based on previous contacts, which have always been negative. I stand by my decision”.
He added that he actually thinks he should have had more back up, saying that he regretted deciding not to take a SWAT team: “We had twelve detectives and there were in fact seven people at the house. To me, those odds aren’t that good”.
But all that said, you might still think this sounds like a bit too much for some egg throwing. Though Thompson also detailed the crime a bit more and said that Bieber caused $20,000 worth of damage to his neighbour’s home, and, he continued, “the victim and his young daughter were in the line of fire for the eggs, which is an assault”.
Plus, ruining all earlier reports on this story, he added that the police weren’t actually looking for eggs during their search. He said: “When we got there, we were looking for anything that would support the crime. We were not looking for eggs. We were looking for security footage, which we did get”.
All of which means that the felony case against Bieber continues, which may as yet result in the singer’s arrest and possibly a jail sentence (the cost of the damage raising the severity of the charge). However, contrary to various reports, this would not potentially result in Bieber being deported from the States back to his native Canada, because the crime doesn’t fit the specific criteria for that. Canada rejoices.
