Botched police raid shocks Quebec man
Last Updated: Saturday, January 8, 2011 | 12:03 PM ET
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Oliver MacQuat said police raided his Gatineau, Que., home on suspicions it was a marijuana grow-op. (CBC)A Gatineau, Que., man is demanding an apology from police after his home was raided at gunpoint Thursday.
Oliver MacQuat said around 7:30 p.m. Thursday a team of armed police officers entered his rural home on Montée Paiement with guns drawn, on the assumption they were busting a marijuana grow-op.
"I opened the door and they all had their guns drawn," MacQuat said.
"I was terrified, my heart was probably going 150 miles an hour."
Around 10 police officers swept through the house, MacQuat said, during which time his teenage son came home to flashing police lights.
"I was shaking, I was very worried. I did not know what happened to my dad, what was happening up here," Emilio MacQuat said.
Police found no drugs on the property.
MacQuat said police confused the smell of marijuana with the scent of a skunk that lives beneath the front of his home.
"A senior officer came in and said there is a skunk … everything is clean," MacQuat said.
"You could see they were all embarrassed and genuinely sorry. They all apologized"
MacQuat wants name cleared
Still MacQuat is asking for a formal apology from the Gatineau police and the Quebec provincial police.
Gatineau police refused to call the raid a mistake Friday, telling CBC News they had reasonable grounds to conduct a search.
MacQuat wants an assurance from police the raid won't appear on his record when he travels in the future.
"If I was to go to the states my name is going to pop up that I was involved in some kind of drug raid," MacQuat said.
"That's going to be great all the rest of my life. I want that gone"
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