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And that’s basically it!
It's better than the title implies. They also broke the MRI machine because they hit emergency stop buttons instead of stopping for a couple seconds to ask how to safely handle removing the gun.
(I'm not sure the cost difference between a graceful shutdown and an e-stop and can't find information, but if it's 250k worth of fix, I'm betting it's significant.)
Yeah, and the magnet was not to blame for this incident despite how the title of this article reads. Given all the (alleged, I guess) facts of the case, I'm pretty sure sure the cops showed up in a clown car that played Yackety Sax when the horn was pressed.
My uncle is a medical equipment installer that installs and calibrates MRI machines.
The issue is more than just the physical damage, which can be expensive, these machines take a long time to calibrate to the local environment. If the electromagnets are damaged, the whole set needs to be replaced, as they are manufactured in matching batches.
It's like if you damage a piston in an engine, it will cause damage to the crank shaft, which will also damage the rest of the engine. It's a helluva job to fix.
I don’t suppose your uncle knows what happens to those magnets that come out…?
You know. Asking for a “friend”. (Okay so this hypothetical friend maybe likes to play with magnets in a totally harmless way….)(edit, yes I know how dangerous they are…. I’ll make sure my “friend” is careful….)
🤣
Just make sure to tell your friend that 600amp wires are expensive and THICK.
IIRC the emergency stop vents the liquid helium, that's a lot of the cost I imagine.
The biggest problem is that the magnets will "quench", which is what happens when a superconducting electromagnet suddenly stops being superconducting.
There's a lot of energy stored in that magnet, and when it quenches the energy all turns to heat in a very short time. Any remaining helium will flash boil, turning into an explosive expansion of gas, and the thermal shock will seriously damage the machine
Which, in older machines, might happily pump a fuckton of gaseous helium into the room, potentially creating overpressure and squeezing the door shut while people suffocate.
Yeah. The magnet quench flash boils a bunch of helium which is itself expensive, and presents a nice asphyxiation hazard as well. And then, assuming the quench damaged nothing, you have to set up the magnet again by getting the coils back down to superconducting temperatures... to get there, you end up boiling off a lot more helium. And then you have have to bring an engineer in to get the electrons spinning through the coil again and wait for the wobbles in the current to stabilize.
Or so I think. I work with NMR spectrometers and not MRIs, but it's essentially the same technology.
There's also a finite supply of helium/liquid helium and ...it ain't cheap to refill.
And they were there because the energy use of the MRI made them suspect it was a pot farm... in a legal state.
I agree with the legal state part, but it was not the energy use of the MRI; it was BS'd from the following:
"Franco conducted surveillance on multiple dates in 2023, reporting the 'distinct odor of live cannabis plant and not the odor of dried cannabis being smoked,' tinted windows–which he attributed to efforts to conceal cannabis cultivation, security cameras– which he associated with locations where cannabis is grown to prevent theft, and two individuals in similar attire at the premises – whom he concluded were performing maintenance or expanding the cultivation operation," the lawsuit alleges.
Why would you conduct a raid without even finding out what the official listing for an address says they do there. Because in this case the bare minimum could have been 2 uniformed cops just ringing the bell.. or an undercover/plain clothes cop making an appointment. But no.. dicks out.. full raid.. probably good overtime.
That is… patently stupid.
Basically he smelled pot.
Thats the only suspicious thing in that chain of observations.
Literally every non-residential building has tinted windows in some way or another- it’s for energy conservation.
Every non residential and a fairly large number of residential buildings have cameras. Yes. To deter would be thieves, but mostly to show what happened and maybe whodunnit, if you’re lucky.
“Similar attire” what the fuck does that even mean? Uniformed? Scrubs? Shit. Everyone in almost every company all wear similar attire when going to work.
Usually job appropriate attire. Which means people doing the same job are going to be wearing “similar attire”.
“They appear to be wearing maintenance clothing- blue jeans, gray polo, tool belts that have [some kind of tools]” is a valid observation.
Or “they appear to all be wearing scrubs, as doctors and nurses wear” or “they appear to be wearing clean room suits”
But what isn’t a valid? “….to do maintenance or expand the operation.”
Well, you see a maintenance worker, them doing maintenance isn’t… too far a leap. But again, literally, every non-residential building has a maintenance guy. That ain’t suspicious.
Right?! And we can't be sure he even smelled the weed he claimed to smell. The other things could be verified by being photographed or requesting documents. But the marijuana smell, the thing that probably made the warrant approvable at all, can never be verified. I wouldn't be surprised if he made it up; hell, they do it during traffic stops so why not for a search warrant.
Distinct odor of live cannabis
I have no idea what that smells like, but this smells like a bunch of crap
Tinted windows, security cameras, and uniforms...rock solid proof of a weed farm. /s
That describes 90% of the businesses I shop at.
Why do you shop at so many weed farms???
Sounds like you buy a lot of weed.
Tinted windows, security cameras, and uniforms
The icing on the cake: „After retrieving his rifle, the officer is said to have accidentally left a magazine full of bullets on the floor of the MRI room.“
Next to the clown shoes, squeaky red nose, and rainbow afro wig, I assume. Unreal.
Sounds like a MRI machine could work as some decent home defense.
The judge that signed off on this warrant needs to be held accountable. Tinted office windows and some guy saying he smelled something should not be enough for a warrant.
You mean you want them to read things before signing?
That's going to require them doing their jobs. They're not going to be happy about that!
They might miss a round of golf, that would be a terrible injustice.
Can we just stop prosecuting people for having weed, which is a harmless plant.
Especially since it's legal in California. Like, c'mon guys, what the hell are y'all doin'?! What's Michael Jordan saying "Just stop it" when you need him.
Two thousand liters of helium gas were allegedly released as a result of the rifle striking the machine.
No not really. It was release as a result of the same idiot who brought his rifle into the room later pressing the emergency shutdown, thereby quenching the magnet and dumping the helium. What a dumb fuck.
Rod Farva level of stupid.
If you fired a gun past an MRI machine, could it conceivably catch the bullets? I am currently assuming that significant deflection is absolutely possible with such a powerful magnet.
Bullets are seldom made of iron though; they're usually lead sometimes jacketed with copper, so they're not magnetic. Conductive, but not magnetic.
Traveling through that strong of a magnetic field, that would definitely generate eddy currents. Like dropping a magnet down a brass plate causes it to move very slowly because the magnetic field moving induces current in the plate and the current creates a counter magnetic field. My instinct is that it would just slow it down, But that MRI is spinning magnets. Maybe it just slows down a little and is it noticeable, maybe it spins it while it's slowing it down and amplifies the minute drop due to gravity. Too bad MythBusters are gone. There's not many people out there funded well enough to test shooting bullets through an MRI machine.
comrade magnetism
One LAPD officer, "dangling a rifle in his right hand, with an unsecured strap, approached the MRI Office" and glanced at the large warning sign on the door that read: 'Warning. Magnetic Field. High Frequency Yield. Metal Parts and Medical Instruments of All Types prohibited.'" He then walked into the MRI Office, according to the lawsuit.
If only those good ole boys and gals could read
Sum up everything you know about cops. Factor in this was a raid looking for contraband. Cop comes across a sign that effectively says “don’t enter”…of course they entered. They’re all “don’t tell me what to do” kind of people…
Another bullshit passive-voice headline. Written implying the fault was not with the LAPD.
"LAPD officers destroy MRI machine in bungled pot raid"
Journalists have avoid committing libel.
In an active-voice headline they would need to add a word like “allegedly” or “reportedly”, which they could have done.
If they report a claim that someone committed a crime and the person is found to not have actually done so, that’s grounds for a libel lawsuit.
So reporting on alleged crimes is done carefully.
Doesn't make it any less bullshit, just show how fucked USA press is.
Lose your rifle, lose your job. Simple as.
Zero tolerance is never good. But this example of stupidity should have at least lose the officer his gun privilege and relegate him to a desk job.
Are you saying you have zero tolerance for zero tolerance?
LoL.. intolerant of intolerance.. but yeah.
Life is messy and hardly ever black or white. Zero tolerance is just lazy leadership.