SWAT destroyed this cancer survivor’s house. Why they may be forced to pay up
A SWAT team destroyed a cancer survivor’s home while chasing a fugitive. The city refused to pay for the damage. But a new legal strategy may help Vicki Baker and others.
The SWAT team smashed Vicki Baker's brand-new fence, shot dozens of tear gas canisters through the walls, windows and roof, and used what Baker describes as a "bomb" to blow off the garage door. The goal, police later told her, was to create confusion and to shock their target.
But Baker was not the suspect in a crime and in fact was more than 1,000 miles away when police destroyed her home in McKinney, Texas. Now the 78-year-old cancer survivor is at the center of a landmark federal court ruling ordering the city of McKinney to pay nearly $60,000 in damages for destroying her house while pursuing a fugitive.
A SWAT team destroyed Vicki Baker's McKinney, Texas home in July 2020. Despite a federal jury ruling the city owes her nearly $60,000, Baker hasn't received a dime yet. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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Baker had packed up a portion of her belongings and moved to Montana in summer 2020 for her retirement. The sale of her McKinney house was almost final.
But on July 25, while Baker was in Montana, a handyman she had hired two years previously took refuge in her home after kidnapping a teen girl. Baker's daughter fled the house and called 911 while Wesley Little remained inside with the teen and a backpack full of guns, Baker said.
Police swarmed the home. Little eventually released the 15-year-old girl, but refused to surrender, telling police he would not come out alive.
So a SWAT team moved in, unleashing a barrage of tear gas explosions from all directions.
"What I was told is the reason they did a lot of that was to bring about confusion to the perpetrator inside," Baker told Fox News. "They call it shock and awe."
"While they were doing all of this damage to my house, [Little] apparently killed himself," she continued.
Every window had to be replaced. Doors had been smashed and tear gas canisters had punched holes in the drywall.
A federal jury awarded Baker $59,656.59 in damages, but the City of McKinney appealed the decision, so she still hasn't received a penny. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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"A hazmat team threw everything out," Baker said. "They had two huge containers in front of my house and both were filled."
Furniture, clothes, Baker's high school yearbooks, her mother's doll collection and antiques all had to be thrown away because they were so saturated with tear gas, she said.
The tear gas and explosions left her daughter's Chihuahua blind, deaf and sick. The dog eventually had to be put down.
The buyer backed out. The damage totaled at least $50,000.
Baker's insurance company refused to cover the bulk of the damage because her policy — like most — excludes damage caused by the government.
Baker tried to file a property damage claim with the city, but officials refused to pay, citing qualified immunity, a doctrine often used to shield police and other government agencies from being sued for violating people's rights or destroying property during the course of their work.
"'We've never paid a claim like this,'" Baker remembers a city employee telling her. "'You won't get a dime.' Those were her exact words."
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She said she laid on the couch crying for days.
"I was forced into semi-retirement, mostly retirement, when the cancer came," she said. "My house was no longer sold. I couldn't pay off this property."
When the Institute for Justice took Baker's case, lawyer Jeffrey Redfern tried to avoid immunity entirely.
"It's a very good thing that the police got this guy off the street, and nobody's disputing that," Redfern said. "It's just about who has to bear the cost of that."
He argued police seized Baker's property under the Takings Clause, just like with eminent domain when the government might seize someone's home to build a road or other infrastructure. Redfern said the city had a right to take the home, but that Baker must be compensated.
A federal judge agreed, and a jury awarded Baker $59,656.59 in damages.
But since the city of McKinney appealed that decision, Baker still hasn't seen a dime. The city maintains that destruction of private property through police operations cannot constitute a Fifth Amendment violation.
The case will be argued before the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in early June. If the Appeals court sides with Baker, it will create a split decision with the 10th Circuit in Colorado, which previously ruled a local police department did not have to compensate a man whose house was destroyed during a gun battle between officers and a shoplifting suspect.
"That raises the odds of a Supreme Court review," Redfern said.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear Baker's case sometime in June, according to Redfern. (Courtesy Institute for Justice)
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No one knows exactly how many innocent citizens have their property damaged or destroyed by police each year, but Redfern said he hears about large scale damage "every few months."
Baker hopes her case will help others.
"I feel we will win this thing," she said. "I feel God is on our side."
Ramiro Vargas contributed to the accompanying video.
