What prompted Pembroke Pines police to conduct a dawn paramilitary raid that ended with the June 12 shooting death of homeowner Vincent “Vinny Hodgkiss?

An anonymous complaint, surveillance of high-turnover visitors and two searches of Hodgkiss’ trash, which yielded scraps of paper with numbers and trace amounts of “green, leafy substance” that tested positive for marijuana.

Police conducted the raid with its Special Response Team (similar to SWAT) after getting a search warrant from Broward Circuit Judge Dale Cohen. Cohen’s June 10 order allowed the search to be conducted at any time, and nobody was required to be home.

Is this what America really wants from its War on Drugs?

Thanks to this investigation, a 46-year-old father ended up dead and police recovered about an ounce-and-a-half of pot.

And about those prescription narcotics police say they recovered in a June 13 search of the house? Well, I still haven’t gotten clarification if they were validly prescribed and stored. According to family and friends, Hodgkiss was seriously ill with a condition they declined to reveal, and he was on several prescription medications.

I’ll print the entire probable cause narrative filed by Pembroke Pines Detective Bryan Dietrich below, but first a few more thoughts about the warrant:

–According to the inventory report filed with the Broward Clerk of Courts, police found a shotgun and two handguns, ammunition, $1600 in cash, 40 grams of marijuana, a digital scale, a variety of prescription drugs, and assorted pipes and drug paraphernalia.

Hodgkiss had a valid concealed weapons permit, which meant the guns and ammunition were not illegal. Cash is not illegal. If he had valid prescription containers, the pills were not illegal. That means the only illegal things may have been the pot and the paraphernalia.

The totality of the evidence could add up to a small time pot dealer. Or it could just be a guy who had a lot of friends, smoked pot, liked guns, was on prescription medication for an illness and had cash because he had a good night at the slots.

I’m not naive, but my point is this: Was an early-morning raid with a mini-battalion the best way to go about serving this warrant? After all, this is a guy who’s lived in the neighborhood for 15 years, not some fly-by-night gang that moved in 3 months ago. I bet two detectives approaching him when he went on a trip to the corner store might have been more effective, and certainly less confrontational.

The attorney for officer Javier Diaz, who fatally wounded Hodgkiss, said Diaz shot Hodgkiss twice after Hodgkiss pumped his loaded shotgun and carried it into his bathroom. The attorney said Diaz fired in “justified self-defense.”

My point in this coverage isn’t to suggest the shooting wasn’t justified, just that needless tragic outcomes like this are inevitable given our nation’s drug policies and police procedures.

For both the sake of Hodgkiss’ family and Officer Diaz (I know these tragedies are traumatic for the shooter as well as the victim), maybe it’s time we take a more measured and rational approach.

Here’s the Probable Cause section from Det. Dietrich’s warrant affidavit and application: