| Photo: The Skunk Stripe |
| Pawcuff that skunk! He smells like weed! |
A Canadian man is demanding an apology after his home was raided at gunpoint Thursday by police who thought the scent of a skunk living under his home meant he was growing marijuana.
Oliver MacQuat of Gatineau, Quebec, said a team of armed police officers barged into his rural home with guns drawn, on the assumption they were busting a marijuana grow, reports CBC News.
“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 his house, MacQuat said, during which time his teenaged son returned home to flashing police lights.
| Photo: CBC |
| Oliver MacQuat said police raided his home, thinking it was a marijuana grow-op, because of a skunk living under his house. |
”I was shaking; I was very worried,” said the son, Emilio MacQuat. “I did not know what happened to my dad, what was happening up here.
Police found no drugs of any kind on the property.
MacQuat said police confused the smell of marijuana with the scent of a skunk who 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 that were all embarrassed and genuinely sorry,” MacQuat said. “They all apologized.”
Still, MacQuat is looking for a formal apology from the Gatineau police and the Quebec provincial police.
Gatineau police didn’t seem inclined the apologize Thursday, telling CBC News they had “reasonable grounds” to conduct a search.
MacQuat wants an assurance from the police that 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,” he said. “I want that gone.”
