Originally published at: SWAT team blows up innocent woman's house, city tries to stop her from suing for damages | Boing Boing
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Hope she wins and de-camps to another State.
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The message being sent is clear: if you see a crime in progress, FOR GOD’S SAKE, don’t call the police!
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If you equip police with all manner of amazing tools of destruction it’s hardly surprising that they’ll take any excuse to use them. Those armored vehicles and battering rams were just gathering dust.
It’s the same with those heavily-armed militia freaks. When your hobbies include stockpiling armor-piercing rocket launchers there’s always going to be one part of your mind itching for an enemy tank to blow up.
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Defund the Police… and give that money to homeowners like this.
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The city’s budget is $618m and they are trying to screw this person out of $50k. Why?!
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Decisions like this give me hope that qualified immunity is on its way out.
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You mean like your home getting destroyed by explosives, tear gas grenades and an armored vehicle?
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Any idea if insurance covers this sort of thing? Let the insurance company deal with collecting from the city. You shouldn’t have to have insurance to cover this sort of thing, and I don’t think this sort of thing is acceptable, but it might be a good way to recover.
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Not if Republicans keep winning governorships and legislative seats since they are largely running on a “no qualified immunity = defunding the police” platform.
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Policing in this country (and the way the legal system treats obvious transgressions by police) is profoundly broken. The quotes in this case are maddening.
"McKinney police met Cook in the parking lot, where she gave them the code to the front door and the garage door opener.
“‘I sold the home just a week ago,’” Baker recalled telling police over the phone. “‘Please, please don’t destroy my house, just get him out."
“The drone apparently went inside, and there was a comment that the drone picked up him laying on the master bed motionless,” she recalled. “Didn’t say ‘dead,’ they just said ‘drone picked him up motionless.’”
After that, police plowed through the back fence, knocked down the garage door and fired tear gas canisters. They found Little dead on the bed, having died by suicide.
*The city’s insurance company told her that the method was called “Shock and Awe,” an approach used to confuse the individual.
*“But he was already dead,” Baker responded.
*“They have complete immunity to do what they think is best,” Baker said she was told.
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Yeesh. They should replace the bed as well.
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Because that’s how ‘risk management’ works. The city will spend tens of thousands to prevent one wronged homeowner from setting precedent for all future wronged homeowners.
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Her insurance company will deny any claim other than blood cleanup.
But someone still had to pick up the pieces, and that person was Baker. She called her insurance company, and she said a special agent told her that there was no coverage for the damage done by police. The company would cover blood cleanup from the suicide.
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it occurs to me that’s the “intended consequence” of qualified immunity. if people can’t hold the individual cops responsible, can’t send them to jail for commiting crimes, the only other avenue is civil proceedings against cities - which forces the cities to be on the side of the cops, even if they might choose to do otherwise
seems like ending qualified immunity would make financial sense as well as moral sense
( eta: as it stands now, with those cops still on the job, they do know it’s going to happen again, and cost them again. )
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It would, but perverse incentives can take a powerful hold on institutions.
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How about locating the homes of all the police involved and SWATing them…
Just a thought…
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Because that covers the breakroom donut funds.
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Was that a suggestion on the part of the insurers? Anything to avoid having to pay out on a claim?
The court just refused to dismiss the suit. She still has very little chance of winning, based on precedent.
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