Colorado SWAT Team Destroys Man's House After Shoplifter Flees Into It

[SeanTX]

I don't think this guy has gotten the message that there is no such thing as "private property" rights in the USSA . I wonder if the neighbor mentioned who had his home used as a "base of operations" had his property temporarily seized for that purpose ? If he voluntarily turned it over to the police he deserves the property damage he got.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news...is-an-atrocity

Owner of house blown apart by SWAT says: 'This is an abomination. This is an atrocity'
SWAT was trying to flush out shoplifting suspect

2:00 AM, Jun 6, 2015

GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. - "There was one gunman with a handgun and they chose to turn this house into something that resembles Osama Bin Laden's compound."

Leo Lech is more than a little upset, and he is not afraid to express it with colorful language.

After all, the house he purchased for his son now has gaping holes where it once had walls and windows. Past the exposed studs and insulation of the condemned structure, you can see artwork on the wall of a 9-year-old boy's bedroom.

"In any civilized nation ... this is the act of paramilitary thugs," he says he told the chief of the Greenwood Village Police Department.

The chief, Lech said, brushed it off.

The damage was inflicted by police and SWAT officers who were working to capture Robert Jonathan Seacat, a suspected 33-year-old shoplifter who allegedly barged into a random home Wednesday afternoon, and opened fire on police when they tried to arrest him a short time later.

snip

Seacat wasn't taken into custody until Thursday morning. The SWAT team said it used chemical agents, flash-bang grenades and a "breaching ram" to end the nearly 20-hour standoff.

"There was obviously some kind of explosive that was fired into here," Lech said, showing 7NEWS anchor Anne Trujillo the cavernous hole in the wall that used to protect the boy's bedroom.

Those holes are visible in nearly every room on the second floor.

A neighbor, who says the SWAT team used his home as a base of operations, points out that whatever the police used to blast the holes sent debris flying.

"When they used the explosives to blow apart the side of this house here, they broke our windshield," the neighbor said.

snip

"This is an abomination," he said. "This is an atrocity. To use this kind of force against one gunman."

snip

[tod evans]

"This is an abomination," he said. "This is an atrocity. To use this kind of force against one gunman."

What part of officer safety do you not understand?

[phill4paul]

Pic of house....





http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28...e-is-destroyed

[donnay]

Pic of house....





http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28...e-is-destroyed

Good Lord! These people are out of control.

[Anti Federalist]

"In any civilized nation ... this is the act of paramilitary thugs,"

What part of officer safety do you not understand?

"Be thankful we didn't call in a drone strike and blow your $#@! sky high. Now, $#@! off and move along." - Officer Friendly.

[RJB]

I'm a bit jaded with these stories, but this has me saying, "WTF?"

Next they'll say that "because terrorist have biological, chemical, or nuclear weapons, your neighborhood police department needs nuclear weapons."

[timosman]

A tank ?

[Dr.3D]

So I have to wonder what the "shoplifter" took that was so valuable as to necessitate the damage done to that home.

[phill4paul]

"Be thankful we didn't call in a drone strike and blow your $#@! sky high. Now, $#@! off and move along." - Officer Friendly.

It's coming. At the rate of violence increase from government against citizens it will be in our lifetime.

[tod evans]

So I have to wonder what the "shoplifter" took that was so valuable as to necessitate the damage done to that home.

It doesn't matter if he took anything, the issue was never about theft it was all about submission.

[Anti Federalist]

A tank ?

[SeanTX]

So I have to wonder what the "shoplifter" took that was so valuable as to necessitate the damage done to that home.

Well, I guess my headline was a bit misleading, this did start out with him just being a fleeing shoplifter, but supposedly he also fired a shot at police from inside during the standoff. Still, I don't think that justifies doing what they did to the house -- there had to have been a better solution, even if it meant waiting him out.

There have been cases where they have literally destroyed homes by bringing them down to the ground with armored bulldozers and backhoes in order to deal with someone who shot at police.

[Henry Rogue]

"Be thankful we didn't call in a drone strike and blow your $#@! sky high. Now, $#@! off and move along." - Officer Friendly.

Or the old reliable, "burn it".

[navy-vet]

So I have to wonder what the "shoplifter" took that was so valuable as to necessitate the damage done to that home.

It was probably considered as a training opportunity.

[SeanTX]

The Supreme Court refuses to hear the case :

https://reason.com/2020/06/29/swat-t...ce=parsely-api

A SWAT Team Blew Up This Family's House While Chasing a Shoplifter. The Supreme Court Won't Hear the Case.
And no, it wasn't the shoplifter's home.

Billy Binion | 6.29.2020 3:50 PM


Five years ago, police officers in Greenwood Village, Colorado, destroyed a private residence while pursuing a suspected shoplifter who had broken in and barricaded himself inside. Last year a federal court denied the homeowners any compensation for those damages, even though they had no connection to the theft and did not willingly allow the fugitive into their house. This morning the Supreme Court announced that it will not hear the case.

snip

This despite the fact that the Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment is supposed to protect citizens from having their property taken or destroyed by the government without being justly compensated for that loss.

"The simple rule of the Constitution is that the government cannot arbitrarily single out private citizens to bear the costs of something that should rightly be the burden of society as a whole," said attorney Jeffrey Redfern of the Institute for Justice, the public interest law firm that represented the Lechs, in a statement. "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."

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit disagreed, ruling in October that the cops acted within their "police power" when they ravaged the home in an attempt to coax the suspect, who was armed with a handgun, to surrender.

As Jay Stooksbury wrote in the December 2017 issue of Reason, the ordeal financially upended the Lech family's life. Leo Lech had to take out a $390,000 loan after having to tear down what remained of the home. As of October of last year, he had incurred an additional $28,000 in attorney's fees.

snip

The Lech case is a microcosm for several discussions around what needs to change. There was the intensely-militarized presence: Why does apprehending a petty thief necessitate grenades and armored vehicles? There was a rather plain violation of the homeowners' constitutional rights. And there was—and is—the lack of accountability, which the Lechs no longer have hope of seeing rectified.

[sam1952]

Hey, you have to break a few eggs...
To get the security and protection of the state...

[Occam's Banana]

[...]

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit [ruled] in October that the cops acted within their "police power" when they ravaged SERVED. AND. PROTECTED. the home in an attempt to coax the suspect, who was armed with a handgun, to surrender.

[...]

Fixed.

[dannno]

Pic of house....





http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_28...e-is-destroyed

Hah, and we are supposed to believe the McMichaels over-reacted..

[sam1952]

Yep, served and protected seem about right.