Colorado woman, 77, left feeling unsafe after SWAT team mistakingly invades her home

A Colorado woman is speaking out about feeling unsafe in her home after a SWAT team mistakingly invaded her residence. 

The Miami Herald reports that the incident occurred on Jan. 4, 2022, when a Denver Police Department SWAT team equipped with automatic weapons rushed into the Montbello home of 77-year-old Ruby Johnson. According to an ACLU news release cited by The Herald, the SWAT team targeted Johnson’s home after an app led them to the wrong location. 

The ACLU of Colorado said in a lawsuit filed on Dec. 1 that the raid was “based on a manifestly deficient search warrant and turned up nothing.”

The lawsuit accuses Denver Police Department detective Gary Staab of violating Johnson’s constitutional “right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.”

Staab was investigating a truck theft in which two drones, several firearms, $4,000 in cash, and an iPhone 11 were allegedly stolen. ACLU officials said the detective used Apple’s “Find My” app to track the iPhone. The app allows Apple users to view the current location of their devices on a map. If the device is online, its location is displayed and you can play a sound on it. When offline, users see the location of the device the last time it was connected, per Apple.com.

The app is not meant to be a tool for law enforcement but Stabbed used it and connected the truck theft crime to Johnson’s address. Per the lawsuit, the app identified “an area spanning at least six different properties and parts of four different blocks.”

The SWAT team was wearing body armor when they mistakenly invaded Johnson’s home, leaving it “damaged, in disarray” and causing the grandmother “physical and emotional harm,” according to the ACLU’s release, The Herald reports.

Johnson was detained during the raid and spent hours in a police car “confused and afraid,” the ACLU release said.

Johnson “no longer feels safe in her own home,” following the unlawful search, according to the release. She is now suffering from health issues such as “extreme stress and anxiety,” per the lawsuit.

ACLU officials accuse Staab of “seeking, obtaining, and executing a search warrant without proper investigation, adequate facts and legal justification, in violation of the Colorado Constitution,” per the lawsuit.

The lawsuit is seeking compensatory damages and attorneys’ fees.

“The Department of Public Safety and Denver Police Department sincerely apologize to Ms. Johnson for any negative impacts this situation may have had on her,” the Denver Police Department told McClatchy News, The Miami Herald reports.

“SWAT was involved in the execution of the warrant due to allegations that six guns had been stolen and may have been located in Ms. Johnson’s home,” the department’s statement continued.

Denver Police reportedly intends to investigate the incident.

Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas told McClatchy News that the department is “working with the Denver District Attorney’s office to develop additional training for officers and assistant district attorneys related to seeking warrants based upon find my phone applications.”

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