Video sharpens focus on raid

He said that the officers could confiscate surveillance equipment, including the cameras, if they believed that the footage provided evidence connected to the drug-paraphernalia case. But, Ramsey added, the officers must include the equipment on a property receipt and explain why they had confiscated the cameras.

"You wouldn't just cut it and take it, because that's somebody's private property," Ramsey said.

During the raid, Richard Cujdik told Duran that the ziplock bags were illegal. Duran tried to explain that he bought the store fully stocked and the bags were already inside.

"OK, it don't matter," Richard Cujdik told him. "You should know your business."

In February 2008, Municipal Court Judge James M. DeLeon sentenced Duran to nine months' probation after he pleaded "no contest" to the charges. He paid $5,000 in attorney's fees.

And Duran, who was renting the first floor that housed the store, lost his lease. The building owner said that Duran had to leave to prevent the city from taking the building in forfeiture, Duran said.

He now operates a grocery in Camden County, but remains angry about the raid.

"That's not fair, what they did to me," Duran said. "That's no way to treat me when they don't know me.

"You work 18 hours [a day] and they come in and do that?"
 
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