A 78-year-old woman whose home was mistakenly searched by a Denver SWAT team will now receive a payment of nearly $3.8 million. The large sum comes as a result of a 2020 Colorado law which banned qualified immunity protection for police officers in the state, greatly increasing the odds of success of civil rights lawsuits against police.
On January 4, 2022, Ruby Johnson, a retired postal worker, was sitting in her Denver home when she heard a police horn ordering her to leave her house with her hands up. Johnson, who had recently showered and was wearing only a bathrobe, left her home to find a Denver SWAT team gathered outside her door.
The SWAT team had been dispatched to Johnson’s home as part of an attempt to recover a vehicle that had been stolen the previous day. According to Johnson’s lawsuit, the stolen car contained an iPhone, and the app’s Find My feature indicated the phone was near Johnson’s home.
Although police officers obtained a warrant to search Johnson’s home, they did so using an affidavit that allegedly gave a “false characterization” of the reliability of the Find My app, exaggerating how confident police could be that the iPhone – and the truck – would have been at Johnson’s house.
According to Johnson’s indictment, after receiving this warrant, the SWAT team aggressively searched his home, causing significant damage to his belongings. To make matters worse, Johnson also gave the police the garage door opener and told them how to enter the front garage door, the police used a battering ram to enter the garage, destroying the door and door frame. Ultimately, the SWAT team found no sign of the truck or any other criminal activity. The officers left and later told Johnson’s children that the department would not pay Johnson for the considerable damage done to his home.
Johnson filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado in December 2022, arguing that the search was illegal under the Colorado Constitution.
“Agents searched Ms. Johnson’s home for hours and found no evidence of anything even remotely related to criminal activity. The illegal search only succeeded in leaving the innocent Ms. Johnson traumatized,” the complaint reads. “Mrs. Johnson’s privacy, sense of security and peace in her home have been destroyed since her home became the scene of a militarized criminal investigation. This unlawful search destroyed Ms. Johnson’s sense of safety and security in her house that was his castle for forty years.”
On Monday, the ACLU of Colorado announced that Johnson had been awarded $3.76 million, including $1.26 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages. In a press release, the ACLU largely credited the passage of a 2020 law who dismissed the police qualified immunity protections – which typically prevent law enforcement from being sued for constitutional violations – for the win.
“This is a small step toward justice for Mrs. Johnson, but it is a critical case under our state’s Constitution, which for the first time says police can be held liable for invading someone’s home without a plausible cause,” Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director She said on Monday. “The ACLU worked hard in the summer of 2020, with many other stakeholders, to create the right to sue for violations of the state Constitution.”