The Black grandmother whose home was wrongfully targeted for stolen items by a Colorado SWAT team just got a phat check after filing a lawsuit.
The ACLU of Colorado represented 78-year-old Ruby Johnson in a lawsuit claiming Denver PD Detective Gary Staab and Sgt. Gregory Buschy violated Johnson’s constitutional rights in connection to the January 2022 incident. The organization claimed the two officers “hastily” sought and obtained a search warrant for Johnson’s home without probable cause. The warrant was the result of a pinned location from an iPhone’s “Find My” app which led the DPD SWAT team to pull up to Johnson’s home spilling out of the trucks in full-gear and loaded military-style rifles.
In body camera footage, the officers are seen swarming her home and giving commands over a loudspeaker for everyone to come outside. The only one inside was ol’ Miss Johnson, who toddled out of the house in her robe, slippers and bonnet - visibly perplexed at the heavy police presence outside of her home.
The officers then proceeded to ransack her house for stolen guns and other items she had no idea about, per the ACLU. “Where do you think she’s hiding the rifle?” one officer is heard asking in the video.
Ultimately, the cops came up short. Now, they owe her BIG time.
Read more from the ACLU of Colorado:
The jury’s award included both $1.26 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages after concluding that the officers acted with willful and wanton disregard of Ms. Johnson’s constitutional right to be free from an unreasonable search and seizure.
The Colorado Constitution requires that search warrants be based on probable cause supported by a written affidavit before police can invade the privacy of someone’s home. In this case, however, the jury concluded that the deficient warrant authorizing the search was unsupported by probable cause.
The organization said in a statement that both Johnson and her home suffered wounds from the incident that have not yet healed. Johnson lost her sense of safety and decided to move from her home of 43 years altogether, according to Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director.
“This is a small step toward justice for Ms. Johnson, but it is a critical case under our state’s Constitution, for the first time affirming that police can be held accountable for invading someone’s home without probable cause,” he said to NBC News.