DENVER (AP) – A 78-year-old woman who sued two police officers after her home was mistakenly searched by a SWAT team for a stolen truck has won a $3.76 million jury verdict under a new Colorado law that allows people to sue police for violating their state constitutional rights.
A state court jury in Denver ruled in favor of Ruby Johnson late Friday, and the verdict was announced Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which helped represent her in the lawsuit. The lawsuit alleges that police obtained a search warrant for the home after the owner of the stolen truck, which contained four semi-automatic handguns, a rifle, a revolver, two drones, $4,000 in cash and an iPhone, tracked the phone to Johnson’s home using the Find My app. and forwarded that information to the police.
According to the lawsuit, Johnson, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker and grandmother, had just gotten out of the shower on Jan. 4, 2022, when she heard orders over a megaphone for everyone inside to come out with their hands up. Wearing only a dressing gown, she opened the front door to see an armored personnel carrier parked on the front lawn, police vehicles lining her street, and men in full military gear with rifles and a police dog.
Detective Gary Staab wrongly obtained a search warrant for Johnson’s home because he failed to point out that the app’s information was not precise and only provided a general location of where the phone might be, the lawsuit said.
Staab’s attorneys and the supervisor who approved the search warrant, Sgt. Gregory Buschy, who is also being sued, did not respond to email and phone calls seeking comment. Denver police, who were not sued, declined to comment on the verdict.
The lawsuit was brought under a provision of a sweeping police reform law passed in 2020 shortly after the killing of George Floyd and is the first major case to go to trial, the ACLU of Colorado said. State lawmakers created the right to sue individual police officers for violating the state constitution in state court. Previously, people who alleged police misconduct could only bring lawsuits in federal court, where it has become difficult to prosecute such cases, in part because of a legal doctrine known as qualified immunity. It protects officers, including the police, from being sued for money as a result of things they do in the course of their jobs.
Police used a battering ram to enter Johnson’s garage even though she explained how to open the door and break the ceiling panels to get into her loft, standing on one of her brand new dining room chairs, the lawsuit alleges. They also smashed the head of a doll made to look just like her, complete with glasses, said ACLU of Colorado legal director Tim Macdonald.
Johnson is black, but the lawsuit doesn’t allege race played a role, he said.
Macdonald said the biggest damage was done to Johnson’s sense of security in the home where she raised her three children as a single mother, he said, temporarily forgoing Christmas and birthday gifts to afford them. She had ulcers and trouble sleeping and ended up moving to another neighborhood.
“To us, damages have always been about psychological and emotional harm to Ms. Johnson,” he said.