Ganwich

When law enforcement officers investigate an organization suspected of criminal wrongdoing, they may not ignore the civil rights of the organization’s employees. Although officers are entitled to act vigorously to gain information and to prevent the flight of the culpable, our Constitution requires that officers heed employees’ rights in the process. This appeal raises such issues. We must decide whether law enforcement officers violated employees’ Fourth Amendment rights by detaining them incommunicado without probable cause and using the threat of continued detention to coerce them to submit to interrogations. Considering the facts in the light most favorable to the employees, 1 we hold that the officers violated the employees’ clearly established Fourth Amendment rights.

I

■ Most of the plaintiffs in this civil rights lawsuit are former employees of Ear-Tec *1118 Hearing Aid Specialists, a business that was under investigation for various fraudulent practices harmful to consumers. These employees were Sandy Ganwich, Linda Hornbeck, Tracy Ingram, Harold W. Jones, Mike Knox, and Kimberly Sad-ler.

On the morning of December 23, 1999, law enforcement officers arrived at the…