A Colorado homeowner, whose home was destroyed by a police SWAT team after a fleeing shoplifter took refuge there, is not owed any form of compensation for the damages according to the Oct. 29 federal appeals court ruling.
WFTV reported that a SWAT team had used explosives and an armored car to break down walls and doors to capture the suspect. At the time of the incident the homeowner, Leo Lech, was renting the home to his son, John Lech. The destruction left John Lech’s son, his son’s girlfriend, and her son with nowhere to live. John Lech, his girlfriend, and her son moved in with Leo Lech, and the young son had to change schools, Fox News reported.
The incident happened in 2015, when a shoplifter stole items from a store in Aurora, Colorado, and then hid in Leo Lech’s house for 19 hours. According to Daily Mail, Robert Jonathan Seacat, the man who hid inside Lech’s house, had allegedly shot at the police trying to arrest him. During the 19-hour standoff between Seacat and the SWAT team, extensive damage occurred to Lech’s house.
According to the news outlet, John Lech’s girlfriend’s 9-year-old son was alone in the house, but was able to walk away unharmed after Seacat entered the home.
Leo Lech had sued the city for property damage, however, the courts said that they weren’t going to pay Lech for property damages because the police were simply enforcing the law at the time, WFTV reported.
The city offered them $5,000 initially for temporary living assistance, and the home insurance company paid them $345,000 for the damages to the house. However, It was not enough to cover the extensive damages done to the home. Since then, Leo Lech had to rebuild the house from scratch, which included demolishing the house, removing the wreckage, and then rebuilding—all of which exceeded the amount that the insurance company paid, according to WFTV.
“It just goes to show that they can blow up your house, throw you out on the streets and say, ‘See you later. Deal with it,'” Leo Lech said. “What happened to us should never happen in this country, ever.”
The police, however, defended the actions taken by the SWAT team back in 2015, according to the Washington Post. Officials said that in order to protect the safety of residents, some measures have to be taken, even if it meant the destruction of property, and apologized for the property damage.
“My mission is to get that individual out unharmed and make sure my team and everyone else around including the community goes home unharmed. Sometimes that means property gets damages, and I am sorry for that,” Greenwood Village Police Commander Dustin Varney said.
