quote:

Originally posted by RHINOWSO:
I guess the cops shoulda left him there...

he was armed with a handgun, they crashed a tank into the front door- disproprotiantatq response.....

I get the police powers isn’t a taking approach, but it sure seems that there should be a standard of what is reasonable. If judged against Rick Lee’s suggestion, it gets kinda difficult to justify the approach used as appropriate, standard, or justifiable.

I though a read in the article below that they tried to use the 5th amendment as rational behind the suite. IANAL, but could this be why the court denied it? Maybe if they tried to used a differnet strategy?

https://www.washingtonpost.com...too-bad-court-rules/

In reviewing their annual report, the City has a $67M budget with $11.1M to the PD. I don't know population numbers but that is a mid-sized department that seems well capitalized. From what I have read, the guy shot at officers. That is not a shoplifting case, it is attempted murder of an officer. I cannot speak to the destructive measures used as I do not know the specifics of the tactical situation. Generally you want to minimize property damage but when balanced against threat to lives all bets are off. It is rare but not unheard of to dismantle a building to get at an armed suspect. I am not so much concerned with the damage that was done to the building as I am with the need to make the property owner whole. My department always made repairs to the property of innocent owners when we had to use destructive means, but then we never did that much damage. The city certainly has the resources to make this right but once the lawyers get involved doing the right thing sometimes gets shoved to the back seat. I think the City has a moral obligation to make the property owner whole, but not to make him a multi-millionaire.

^^^^ Agree. Their action was affirmed by one court but they lost in the court of public opinion.
Maybe the home owner can get reimbursed through the states victim compensation program.
Had I been GVPD Chief, not only would I have paid to repair the house, I would have thrown a block party for the neighborhood to show off the work! And I would bring the BearCat and let the local kids climb all over it!

I believe my home owner's policy specifically excludes police action and up until now I didn't fully understand what that meant.

It’s odd that this hasn’t been correlated to tearing down a building to stop the spread of a fire - if my memory is correct, under common law, the state was required to recompense for property damage but not for... term I’ve forgotten, but essentially the act was not wrongful, so there was no penalty, merely a shifting of the cost from the individual to the state, as the state took the property to preserve the wealth and health of the populace.

quote:

merely a shifting of the cost from the individual to the state state individual tax payer

I'm all for my tax dollars going to pay for things that are truly necessary. Tearing down a half million dollar building because a shoplifter fired a pistol at the police is not one of those things.