Woman Sues After Police Destroy Her Home During 10-Hour Standoff With The Family Dog

from the we're-unfamiliar-with-this-home-entry-device-you-call-a-'key' dept

When the only thing standing between law enforcement and a suspect they're seeking is a person's home, well… the home's got to go.

As seen previously here at Techdirt, police officers pretty much razed a residence to the ground searching for a shoplifting suspect. In another case, law enforcement spent nineteen hours engaged in a tense standoff with an empty residence before deciding to send in a battering ram.

Another standoff -- currently the center of a federal lawsuit -- stands somewhere in between these two cases. The house wasn't completely empty or completely destroyed. But that still doesn't make the Caldwell (ID) police look any more heroic… or any less destructive.

The lawsuit's [PDF] opening paragraph lays it all out.

On August 11, 2014, after registering her child for first grade, Ms. West returned to her home to find multiple City of Caldwell police officers in her yard searching for a Fabian Salinas. Wanting to cooperate, and uncertain whether Salinas was in her house, Ms. West gave the police a key to her house and gave them permission to use it to enter her house to arrest him. During a ten hour long standoff, police repeatedly exceeded the authority Ms. West had given them, breaking windows, crashing through ceilings, and riddling the home with holes from shooting canisters of tear gas destroying most of Ms. West and her children’s personal belongings. The only occupant of the house was Ms. West’s dog. Ms. West’s home remained uninhabitable for two months.

Here's one photo of the home, taken by officers and provided to the Idaho Statesman in response to a public records request. (More photos can be found at the link.)

If you'd like to see some pictures of the standoff with the family pet that include the Caldwell Police's impressive armored personnel carrier (presumably able to withstand even the nastiest of dog bites), those can be found here.

According to Courthouse News Service's interview with Shariz West's lawyer, the documentation he's viewed gives no explanation why it took a small army of SWAT officers 10 hours to discover the suspect wasn't in the home.

"I have no idea," he said. "I've read the police reports and debriefing, and it's my recollection that someone heard a deadbolt activate, which was impossible, and saw the curtains move, which is possible because there was a pit bull in the house at the time. Basically, they had a standoff with a dog."

And that some remedial attic-traversing training might be in order.

Fisher said some of the damage to the house was caused when an officer slipped off a truss while crawling in the attic and fell through the ceiling.

So, when given a key and consent from the occupant, officers instead chose to grab an armored vehicle and go through several windows and the attic. Even if they believed the suspect might be dangerous, there has to be some middle ground between full-scale assault and simply unlocking the door and stepping inside.

This happened back in 2014 but there's been no coverage of the Caldwell cops' 10-hour, one-dog standoff until now. Thomas Johnson of Fault Lines suggests that might have something to do with the local paper of record.

If you’re wondering why it took a couple of years for this event to make news outside of Idaho, it’s because the local paper apparently only checks court records or their exclusive police source, resulting in some very incomplete reporting. Why bother getting out there and talking to the homeowner or neighbors when you can sit on your chunk?

The "coverage" Johnson points to opens with some severe law enforcement spin:

A man who escaped a police standoff last August in Caldwell, only to be captured in Meridian about a week later, pleaded guilty in 3rd District Court to felony eluding and felony rioting.

That's a pretty generous depiction of what actually happened. From all appearances, the suspect was never in the home during the 10-hour standoff. And when someone's not actually where you think they are, it's a huge stretch to refer to their non-presence as an "escape." If that's the spin the PD's using, they can just claim any person with an outstanding warrant not found at Shariz West's home on that long day in August 2014 also "escaped" the same standoff.

In any event, the city and PD are now facing a lawsuit. The police did give her a three-week stay in a hotel. Too bad it took more than two months for her to be able to return to her residence. This raid on a house containing nothing more than a dog is the natural side effect of police militarization, which encourages law enforcement to escalate in questionable situations, rather than use more measured tactics to ensure occupants aren't deprived of a place to live simply because a suspect might be hiding somewhere behind closed doors.

Filed Under: dog, police, standoff

Nineteen-Hour 'Standoff' Ends With Law Enforcement Officers Destroying An Empty House

from the we'll-teach-you-to-be-vacant! dept

The Cherokee County (KS) Sheriff's Department engaged in a fruitless 19-hour standoff with a vacant residence. On the 20th hour, the fugitive house was finally taken down.

A SWAT truck with a battering ram attached was used to poke holes and tear apart the house in an attempt to drive the nonexistent suspect out. As deputies became unable to find him, they began taking their frustration out on couches, beds, lamps, clothing, toys, and even the family’s Christmas tree was ripped through a window and smashed to bits.

The entire time, Nita Lane, the homeowner, was trying to tell the cops that Alexius was not there and does not live there.

The sheriff, quite expectedly, remains unapologetic. Despite being told by the victim that Alexius was not in her house, [Sheriff David] Groves maintains that his officers acted in the best possible manner.

“It appeared using that tool [infra-red camera] there was somebody in the attic. As it turns out, now we know that was incorrect. But nonetheless that was the information we were operating under at the time,” said Groves.

The write-up at The Free Thought Project contains a decent summation of the ridiculous ordeal, but the real fun comes in reading the play-by-play at the Joplin Globe, which captures the shifting narrative provided by the Sheriff's Department.

It begins on December 15th, with the site declaring "Joplin man in standoff with law enforcement in Galena." Granted, this was several hours before it was discovered that a more accurate headline would have been "Joplin house in standoff with law enforcement."

Galena police and agents with the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and the FBI served a search warrant about 9 p.m. Monday at 1009 E. Fifth St. looking for Alexius and removed a woman and four children from the home. In the course of serving the warrant, they learned that Alexius was hiding in the attic of the single-story house and might be armed.

That's not really what they learned. They used a thermal imaging camera and thought they detected someone hiding in the attic. So, the standoff began, with the sheriff confidently stating they'd be able to wait out the fugitive member of the local gang concern, "Joplin Honkies," thanks to the department's bench depth.

"Time is on our side," the sheriff said. "We have the luxury of being able to rotate officers out. At some point, he's going to have to come out of there."

Five hours later, Sheriff Groves admitted that the man the occupants of the house had already stated wasn't in the house was, in fact, not in the house.

Cherokee County Sheriff David Groves said local, state and federal law enforcement officers late into the day on Tuesday had believed that Doug Alexius, 40, of Joplin, was inside the home and armed, although no shots had been fired.

Groves said a search that ended at 5:30 p.m. concluded that Alexius was not in the home.

Left unmentioned was the damage done to the house in search of the fugitive who wasn't there. Law enforcement officers fired flash bangs into the home and used an armored vehicle-mounted ram to punch holes in the attic. The officers also tore apart the inside of the home in their futile search.

It wasn't until the following day that the damage done to the home was addressed. The FBI agreed to pay for the destruction, but Sheriff Groves refused to shoulder any of the blame, despite initiating the pointless standoff.

"As for why specific tactics were utilized or items removed, those questions would need to be directed to the teams involved in that action," Groves wrote in an email to the Globe. "The teams utilized were from the KBI and FBI. The FBI indicated yesterday (Tuesday) that they would be paying for the damages to the home."

He also wrote:

"The information we received indicates he was in the residence that morning… Either that information was inaccurate or he left prior to law enforcement arrival. We have no reason to believe that he left the residence once a perimeter was established."

This last sentence is problematic, given statements made later by other law enforcement officials.

The standoff that wasn't included police dogs, the evacuation of nearby houses, a cordoned-off block, officers from three law enforcement agencies (FBI, Sheriff's Department, Kansas Bureau of Investigation) and a plane circling overhead. Groves had "no reason" to believe the suspect had escaped undetected because that outcome verged on impossible. And yet, his statement was directly contradicted by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation two days later, starting with a justification for the havoc wreaked on the empty house:

Doug Younger, the agent for the Kansas Bureau of Investigation who oversaw part of what has been described as a standoff between agents and an armed man reputed to be a member of the Joplin Honkies gang, walked through the house of single mother Juanita Lane on Tuesday night after it was all over.

Windows were broken out and a ram had been used to batter a hole in the back of the modest white house so agents could reach the attic where Doug Alexius was believed to be hiding. Throughout the 20 1/2-hour ordeal, the children's pet rabbit scampered around the house.

Younger, who oversees the statewide SWAT team for the KBI, told the Globe on Friday that he believes Alexius was in that house the whole time although the wanted man wasn't found after agents combed through the house with the help of a robot and dogs.

"I believe he was there, but we were going to have to tear the place down to find him," Younger said.

Faith. Just the sort of thing we like to see in our law enforcement officers -- especially those willing to tear apart a family's home in service of their gut feelings. Younger actually congratulates himself for the house not being completely razed during the search for the nonexistent fugitive.

"I feel like we did due diligence, but at the same time we stopped before we tore the place to the ground," Younger said.

Good for him. But Younger still holds the belief that the wily Joplin Honky either burrowed into the house's foundation or somehow made his way past the three-agency dragnet surrounding the house. This belief helps Younger justify the damage done to the house while simultaneously allowing him to brag about his agency's admirable restraint.

The FBI will cover the damage, which is nice. The courts have already made it clear law enforcement has no obligation to reimburse property owners for damaged houses, vehicles, or personal effects. That a federal agency would step up and assist the homeowner in this fashion is commendable, even if everything leading up to that point was a debacle.

Filed Under: cherokee county, david groves, doug alexius, kansas, nita lane, police, standoff, swat