I understand people’s frustration, but this is the common law rule and, here in California at least, is part of sovereign immunity. It may not be much of an answer to the affected homeowner, but the answer is what the answer always is: Change the law
The “blame” lies with the perp. Unfortunately, he’s probably broke and insurance doesn’t cover criminal acts so the homeowner is screwed.
They do get to claim the damages as a loss on their tax return though.
This falls into the sometimes ugly shit happens bucket.
-PJ
They bulldoze a house to catch a shoplifter? I must be missing something.
I have no problem with the police pursuing the criminal but to be able to destroy the home and the owner not be compensated for the total destruction of that home is fundamentally wrong.
The article says his lawyers will appeal to the Supreme Court.
But to do this chasing frickin' shoplifter is beyond the pale. Yes, he was armed, but he was holed up in this house. The police could had waited for him to surrender and/or come out of the house.
This won't be that last we hear of this injustice.
Nah, the jurisdiction should compensate.
Seems they would have an insurance policy for this.
Number one, it would take care of situations like this.
Number two, it might cause the officers to try a little harder not to destroy a home.
Not trying to trash the officers here. I’m not familiar with the case. I sure don’t think it’s right for an innocent home-owner to have to spend his savings or take out major loans for this sort of thing.
It seems to be a taking for public use to me.
I believe compensation per Amendment V is owed to the homeowner.
Paying the homeowner is also the right thing to do.
the public was safe with him holed up in there .. without the military explosive and armoured vehicle assault, etc
Of course. It was the fleeing suspect who provoked the police that brought on the wreckage. This is why one buys home insurabce—an unexpected incident causing damage.
If the shoplifter was shooting at just the police (from inside the house he snuck into), and he has no history of violent crimes against others, then I'm way against this ruling.
But if the shoplifter was shooting at many other people from inside the house, and/or he has a long history of committing violent crime against others, then I want to cut the police some slack for doing whatever it took to stop him as soon as they could.
So let's reserve our judgement until we know everything in the story, which NPR is notorious for leaving out on purpose.
In late news...the city is fining the owner of a home for maintaining an eyesore and failing to maintain proper upkeep on his home.... /sarc
Wow. This could go a long way to ensure police have utterly no responsibility to ‘limit’ or ‘minimize’ their damage to private property when going after the bad guy.
Police can be as destructive as they like. Think some bad guy is in that house? Well then, drive your truck right into the house, and knock the walls down. Not my problem Mr. Freeper. See ya.
See a bad guy run inside your house? Let the police blow the darn thing down. Nothing to stop or to limit them.
What’s that? You don’t have insurance to cover such things? Well, too bad, so sad Mr. Freeper. Sucker.
Nice country you got there Mr. Freeper.
What I don’t understand about the case is normally you sue under 42 U.S.C. section 1983 (civil rights violations), and then claim the civil rights violation is a taking (violation of due process is generally also alleged). Also technically the violation is of the 14th amendment, not the Fifth Amendment (which only applies to the federal government; here you had state/local action). So I am somewhat baffled by this whole opinion.
Next time they’ll carpet bomb the neighborhood.
They have to sue the criminal. 100 officers for a shoplifter.
bookmark
I’ll contribute to help rebuild the guy’s house, and to buy a rope for the judge.
ML/NJ
Hard to understand how launching projectiles into a home is perfectly safe...