Who pays for police’s cleanup?
Determining where bill for damage goes can be long process
Police SWAT teams are known for breaking down doors. But in recent weeks, law enforcement agencies in the Houston area have been breaking apart whole houses, from the roof on down.
The damage wrought on two houses might have been justified from a tactical standpoint and was legal under the law, experts say. But whether the police, or the governments they work for, will be required to pay for the damage is an open question, academics and legal experts said.
“Legally, what the Supreme Court has said is they can’t be excessive or unnecessary,” said Kenneth Williams, a law professor at the South Texas College of Law. “They’re allowed to destroy property. It really comes down to whether it’s reasonable.”
Twice in August, law enforcement agencies in and around Houston took a step that seemed unusual. Using heavy machinery, law enforcement tore holes into the sides of Houston-area homes, effectively starting a demolition to end a standoff with a person whom they believed was possibly armed and hiding in the home.
In the first standoff Aug. 17, police were trying to arrest Terran Green, a Houston man accused of shooting a Harris County Sheriff’s Office deputy during a traffic stop and then wounding three more members of the task force that tried to apprehend him.
Law enforcement tracked Green to a home in the Humble area, where police used two Rooks — small excavators that have been modified into armored vehicles — to tear into the house, ripping holes into walls and allowing police a clearer look inside.
After five hours, law enforcement pinned Green in a second
floor room. He ended the standoff by holding on to the extended arm of one of the machines, which lowered him to the ground and into the arms of law enforcement.
A week later, federal agents damaged a home in southeast Houston, this time by an FBI task force looking for a man as part of an operation targeting “alleged violent offenders.” Television cameras caught federal agents using a Humveemounted arm to rip part of a roof off a home. The agency later said the man they were looking for was not in the home.
While there are numerous examples of SWAT raids damaging homes when police move in to arrest a person, the strategy of causing dramatic property damage as a tactic is not typical, said Mike Matranga, a former Secret Service agent and the CEO of M6 Global, a security company.
The property damage caused in Green’s arrest was likely deemed justified by law enforcement because he had been accused of shooting at multiple officers, Matranga said. Police said they believed he was dangerous — to them and potentially other people in the area — so they developed a strategy to give officers more advantages and more ability to stay protected.
“What really pushed them was the exigency,” Matranga said.
In other cases, where shots hadn’t already been fired, police might have chosen to spend more time trying to talk Green out of the house.
It’s not known how often SWAT teams intentionally damage property when trying to make an arrest, but Harris County officials said it’s not uncommon for police to damage people’s property.
Property owners can seek reimbursement from the county for damage caused by the sheriff’s office, said Deputy Thomas Gilliland, a spokesman for the agency.
Owners of vehicles are more likely to deal with damaged cars during crashes involving Harris County Sheriff ’s Office personnel than damaged homes, he said. Sometimes members of the SWAT team knock down the wrong door.
Gilliland recalled only a handful of times in recent years when deputies damaged a home like they did during Green’s apprehension.
“Nine times out of 10, it doesn’t go this far,” Gilliland said.
Insurance companies and the county tend to work out pay outs to the property owner for any required repairs, Gilliland said.
Whether a homeowner is legally entitled to compensation is an open question, however.
Richard Johnson, a spokesman for the Insurance Council of Texas, said there have been cases where insurers denied claims made by people whose homes were damaged during drug investigations.
“The court upheld the denial, stating that the damage was caused by the police in executing the search warrant and the search necessarily entailed a certain amount of destruction,” Johnson said.
Johnson said homeowners should contact their insurers to review their policies and figure out what things are included and excluded. There may be situations where people would want to seek coverage for a home’s contents.
When people seek compensation from the county for damage caused by the sheriff ’s office — or any other county office — they’re asked to fill out a form giving the date, a description of the occurrence, photographs of the damage and documentation of damage estimates.
Once the claim is submitted, the county’s risk management department assigns the case to an adjuster who would then determine if Harris County is liable for the damage.
Williams, the law professor, said a homeowner could also sue for compensation by making a claim under the Fourth Amendment. Last year, a federal court in Texas also ruled a McKinney woman was entitled to be paid for damage caused to her property by a SWAT team, after the city tried to claim it was protected from damage claims by governmental immunity.
Matranga said he believed the police leaders who were coordinating the SWAT responses were aware of how the destruction might look later. But he said police commanders will also consider the risk to officers and suspects when making decisions.
Matranga said law enforcement pursing Green could have opted to make a dramatic and heavily armed entry, but the chances of him being shot would be greatly increased.
“The reason he’s still alive is because they took that route,” he said.