(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) The axiom if you break it, you bought it seemingly doesn’t apply to SWAT teams around the country.
Police forces train and deploy such special weapons and tactics units to, e.g., arrest heavily armed violent criminals or respond to hostage situations.
As reported by the libertarian news outlet Reason, some municipalities apparently are unenthusiastic about reimbursing business owners or homeowners when some of these military-style raids go wrong.
In general, courts have not been receptive to awarding restitution, either.
In one instance that is now subject to litigation, the LAPD allegedly fired approximately 30 tear-gas rounds over a 13-hour period into a print shop in an attempt to arrest a fleeing fugitive inside who, it turned out, had escaped from the store sometime during the siege.
The suspect had pushed the owner, Carlos Pena, out of the shop before SWAT officers arrived on the scene in the August 2022 incident.
The store, which is still closed, allegedly suffered extensive damage totaling at least $60,000, for which the city insists it is not liable.
In this context, Pena and any other similarly situated persons may find themselves in a Catch-22 situation.
As a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles, filed as co-counsel by the non-profit Institute for Justice, points out, “The damage is excluded from Carlos’s insurance coverage, which like most policies does not cover damage caused by the government.”
The legal complaint, which seeks indemnification “for the intentional destruction of private property,” asserts that “The Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that ‘private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation.’”
This is Carlos Pena. Last year, a SWAT team threw more than 30 grenades into his printing shop, destroying almost everything. Carlos was not suspected of a crime.
Then, the city left him with the bill. He can no longer make a steady living.
He's not the first victim. A thread. pic.twitter.com/jdL06pCVUm
— Billy Binion (@billybinion) July 28, 2023
The crux of the matter, the lawsuit implies, is that “Apprehending a dangerous fugitive is in the public interest, and ‘in all fairness and justice,’ the cost of apprehending such fugitives should be borne by the public, and not by an unlucky and entirely innocent property owner.”
Pena is seeking compensation for business repairs and for lost revenue.
“Pena is not the first such property owner to see his life destroyed and be left picking up the pieces,” Reason claimed.
In a 2015 instance, SWAT allegedly destroyed a Colorado family’s home in pursuit of an unrelated shoplifter who had broken in.
“The $580,000 home was rendered unlivable and had to be demolished; the government gave them a cool $5,000,” Reason wrote.
The homeowner’s insurance carrier in this instance paid $345,000, but the family was left “$390,000 in the hole,” and the family didn’t get anywhere in federal court.
In a 2020 incident, a Texas woman in her late 70s allegedly lost everything after a SWAT response, which reportedly include a BearCat armored vehicle smashing through fencing or a front door, during a barricade incident in which a kidnapping suspect was in the otherwise empty house.
“As in Pena’s case, [Vicki] Baker never disputed that the police had a vested interest in trying to keep the community safe. But she struggled to understand why they left her holding the bag financially as she had to confront a dilapidated home, a slew of ruined personal belongings, and a dog that went deaf and blind in the mayhem,” Reason explained.
She subsequently did win a $60,000 jury verdict, however, “although the court’s rulings did not create a precedent in favor of future victims.”
A footnote is that Baker’s daughter reportedly gave cops a key to the home along with the garage door opener and the code for the gate, but they allegedly responded with disproportionate force anyway.
Obviously leaving aside across-the-board police defunding championed by the anarchy-loving, soft-on crime left, there does seem to be room for legitimate law enforcement reform.
In a previous statement, IJ attorney Jeffrey Redfern asserted that under the Constitution’s Taking Clause, “If the government requires a piece of property to be destroyed, then the government should pay for it—and that’s just as true regardless of whether the people doing the destroying are the local school board or the local police.”
