A woman wins $3.8 million verdict after SWAT team searches wrong home based on Find My iPhone app

A 78-year-old woman who sued two police officers after her home was wrongly searched by a SWAT team looking for a stolen truck has won a $3.76 million jury verdict under a new Colorado law that allows people to sue police over violations of their state constitutional rights.

A jury in state court in Denver ruled in favor of Ruby Johnson late Friday and the verdict was announced Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, which helped represent her in the lawsuit.

 The lawsuit alleged that police got a search warrant for the home after the owner of a stolen truck, which had
four semi-automatic handguns, a rifle, a revolver, two drones, $4,000 cash and an iPhone inside, tracked the phone to Johnson's home using the Find My app, and passed that information on to police.

According to the lawsuit, Johnson, a retired U.S. Postal Service worker and grandmother, had just gotten out of the shower on Jan. 4, 2022, when she heard a command over a bullhorn for anyone inside to exit with their hands up. 

Wearing only a bathrobe, she opened her front door to see an armored personnel carrier parked on her front lawn, police vehicles along her street and men in full military-style gear carrying rifles and a police dog.

Detective Gary Staab had wrongly obtained the warrant to search Johnson's home because he did not point out that the app's information is not precise and provides only a general location where a phone could be, the lawsuit said.

Lawyers for Staab and the supervisor who approved the search warrant, Sgt. Gregory Buschy, who was also sued, did not respond to an email and telephone calls seeking comment.

The police used a battering ram to get into Johnson's garage even though she had explained how to open the door and broke the ceiling tiles to get into her attic, standing on top of one of her brand new dining room chairs, according to the lawsuit. 

They also broke the head off a doll created to look just like her, complete with glasses, ACLU of Colorado legal director Tim Macdonald said.

Macdonald said the biggest damage was done to Johnson's sense of safety in the home where she raised three children as a single mother, he said, temporarily forgoing Christmas and birthday presents to help afford it.

 She suffered ulcers and trouble sleeping and eventually moved to a different neighborhood.

Ref: A woman wins $3.8 million verdict after SWAT team searches wrong home based on Find My iPhone app (yahoo)