COEUR d'ALENE - Kootenai County Sheriff's Office officials are standing behind the actions taken by deputies last June when they stopped a vehicle mistakenly reported stolen.

The family using the car, a loaner from an auto dealership, is suing the Spokane dealer involved in the mix-up. In a complaint filed this week in First District Court, an attorney for the Bryntesen family alleges that parents Casey and Sheree were taken into custody at gunpoint while their young children looked on.

KCSO Lt. Stu Miller told The Press Friday that prior to the stop, deputies "called for cover units to assist and confirmed that the vehicle was still listed as stolen from Spokane."

In instances of law enforcement pulling over suspects driving stolen vehicles, Miller said the standard is to conduct a "high risk stop" from a distance - calling each subject out of the car individually and then detaining them.

"Generally, when we find stolen cars they aren't stolen by good folks," Miller said. "This was a clerical error on behalf of the dealership. Our deputies were acting on good faith and took every reasonable step to not only ensure their safety, but everyone in the car as well."

Miller added that deputies' accounts of the incident were "not as dramatic" as the plaintiffs' attorneys documented, and that conducting the "high risk stop" of the vehicle was in line with the office's policy and training.

The Bryntesens are suing Camp Automotive and Lithia Motors for $2 million in damages.

Dylan Jackson, a Seattle-based attorney who is representing Camp Automotive and Lithia Motors in the civil suit, said Thursday that the incident was the result of "an unfortunate clerical error" but added that "they (his clients) didn't point the guns at the Bryntesens."

"They are sorry that it happened and they were apologetic from day one," Jackson said. "But that wasn't good enough for them (the Bryntesens) so here we are."