A woman is taking her case to the U.S. Supreme Court to get money back from a Texas city police SWAT team that damaged her property while looking for an armed runaway. The damage cost almost $60,000.
Vicki Baker has asked the top court in the country to look over her claim again after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused to do so.
In an email to Law&Crime, Jeffrey Redfern, a senior attorney with the nonprofit Institute for Justice, said, “Getting dangerous criminals off the streets is a legitimate government function. But when police destroy innocent people’s property in the process, the government must pay just compensation.” “The Supreme Court has a chance to make it clear that the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment covers police powers just like it covers any other action by the government that takes innocent people’s property.”
An email from Denise Lessard, a spokesperson for the city of McKinney, to Law&Crime said that Baker turned down the city’s offer of $51,215.04 in 2022 in “exchange for Ms. Baker’s dismissal with prejudice of this lawsuit in its entirety.”
The city said in the statement that it “will continue to defend the ruling if the decision is ultimately heard by the Supreme Court.”
Law&Crime said that Baker’s house was destroyed during the raid, which made a potential buyer decide not to buy it.
On July 25, 2020, Baker’s adult daughter, who was at the house while Baker was away, called the police to report that an escaped prisoner was holding a 15-year-old runaway girl hostage in Baker’s house. The fugitive had done handyman work at the house but had been fired.
When the police showed up, there was a fight. Officers broke down the home’s fence with an armored truck and used tear gas to break down doors and windows.
A SWAT team from the McKinney Police Department set up a perimeter and used an intercom device to do “loud hailing.” Soon after, the wanted person let the girl go, and she left the house without getting hurt. She told the cops that the wanted person was inside, armed, and “get ready to shoot.”
The police used explosives to break down the garage door and armored personnel trucks to damage the front door and fence. According to court papers, they fired tear gas grenades through windows and walls until “every cubic inch of the interior was saturated.”
It said that the fugitive had “died by his own hand” by the time cops went inside the house.
The house was blown up. The floors, drywall, and insulation were taken out, and all the personal belongings were thrown away. It was time to get new doors and windows.
When Baker’s insurance wouldn’t pay for the damage, she asked the city to pay. She sued the city in federal court in March 2021 because they said no. She said it was against the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause, which says private land cannot “be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
A jury decided that Baker should get $59,656.59 in compensation.
Afterwards, the city made an appeal. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that the clause did not require property damage compensation when it was “objectively necessary for officers to damage or destroy that property in an active emergency to prevent imminent harm to persons.”