From the heart of DENVER — A landmark case has seen a 78-year-old woman, Ruby Johnson, triumph in a lawsuit against two police officers, following an erroneous search of her home by a SWAT team. The search was conducted under the mistaken belief that her home harbored a stolen truck. The jury awarded Johnson a staggering $3.76 million, a verdict made possible by a recent Colorado law that permits citizens to sue police for infringing on their state constitutional rights.
The jury’s decision was delivered late Friday in a state court in Denver, with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado, who assisted Johnson in her legal battle, announcing the verdict on Monday. The lawsuit claimed that the police had obtained a search warrant for Johnson’s home based on information from the owner of the stolen truck. The truck contained four semi-automatic handguns, a rifle, a revolver, two drones, $4,000 in cash, and an iPhone. The owner had tracked the iPhone to Johnson’s residence using the Find My app and relayed this information to the police.
As per the lawsuit, Johnson, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker and grandmother, had just stepped out of the shower on the morning of Jan. 4, 2022, when she heard a loud command over a bullhorn instructing anyone inside the house to exit with their hands up. Clad only in her bathrobe, she opened her front door to find an armored personnel carrier parked on her front lawn, police vehicles lining her street, and men in full military-style gear, armed with rifles and accompanied by a police dog.
The lawsuit further stated that Detective Gary Staab had erroneously obtained the warrant to search Johnson’s home, failing to clarify that the app’s information is not exact and only provides a general location of where a phone might be.
Neither Staab nor the supervisor who approved the search warrant, Sgt. Gregory Buschy, who was also sued, responded to requests for comment. The Denver Police Department, which was not a defendant in the lawsuit, refrained from commenting on the verdict.
The lawsuit was filed under a clause of a comprehensive police reform bill passed in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd. This is the first significant case to go to trial under this provision, according to the ACLU of Colorado. The bill allows individuals to sue police officers for state constitutional violations in state court. Prior to this, allegations of police misconduct could only be pursued in federal court, where it has become increasingly challenging to litigate such cases, largely due to the legal doctrine known as qualified immunity. This doctrine protects officials, including police officers, from lawsuits seeking monetary damages for actions taken in the course of their duties.
The lawsuit also detailed how the police used a battering ram to force entry into Johnson’s garage, despite her explaining how to open the door. They also damaged the ceiling tiles to access her attic, standing on one of her brand new dining room chairs in the process. They even broke the head off a doll made to resemble Johnson, complete with glasses, according to Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado’s legal director.
While Johnson is Black, the lawsuit did not claim that race was a factor in the incident, Macdonald clarified.
Macdonald emphasized that the most significant damage was inflicted on Johnson’s sense of security in her own home, where she had raised three children as a single mother. She had even sacrificed Christmas and birthday gifts to afford the house. The incident led to her developing ulcers and sleep problems, eventually prompting her to relocate to a different neighborhood.
“For us, the damage was always about the psychological and the emotional harm to Ms. Johnson,” Macdonald stated.
Disagree – The award seems excessive for a mistake made by law enforcement.
Disagree – It’s important for law enforcement to be held accountable for their mistakes, but $3.8M seems excessive for a simple error.
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