House blown apart by SWAT team attempting to catch shoplifter who shot at police.


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GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. - "There was one gunman with a handgun and they chose to turn this house into something that resembles Osama Bin Laden's compound."

Leo Lech is more than a little upset, and he is not afraid to express it with colorful language.

After all, the house he purchased for his son now has gaping holes where it once had walls and windows. Past the exposed studs and insulation of the condemned structure, you can see artwork on the wall of a 9-year-old boy's bedroom.

"In any civilized nation ... this is the act of paramilitary thugs," he says he told the chief of the Greenwood Village Police Department.

The chief, Lech said, brushed it off.

The damage was inflicted by police and SWAT officers who were working to capture Robert Jonathan Seacat, a suspected 33-year-old shoplifter who allegedly barged into a random home Wednesday afternoon, and opened fire on police when they tried to arrest him a short time later.

The incident began Wednesday afternoon, when he was allegedly spotted shoplifting in Aurora. Seacat then drove to a nearby light rail station, where he ditched his car and ran.

Eventually, he ran into Lech's house on South Alton Street in Greenwood Village, where the 9-year-old boy was inside. Police dispatchers and the child's mother, who is engaged to Lech's son, talked the child out of the house.

The boy was unhurt, but the standoff was just beginning.

Seacat wasn't taken into custody until Thursday morning. The SWAT team said it used chemical agents, flash-bang grenades and a "breaching ram" to end the nearly 20-hour standoff.

"There was obviously some kind of explosive that was fired into here," Lech said, showing 7NEWS anchor Anne Trujillo the cavernous hole in the wall that used to protect the boy's bedroom.

Those holes are visible in nearly every room on the second floor.

A neighbor, who says the SWAT team used his home as a base of operations, points out that whatever the police used to blast the holes sent debris flying.

"When they used the explosives to blow apart the side of this house here, they broke our windshield," the neighbor said.

"There are holes just like this one all through the back of the house too," Lech said. "They methodically fired explosives into every room in this house in order to extract one person. Granted, he had a handgun, but against 100 officers? You know, the proper thing to do would be to evacuate these homes around here, ensure the safety of the homeowners around here, fire some tear gas through the windows. If that didn

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Glad to hear something good came out of it :laugh:

Erm, the ring didn't survive this. Also, jesus christ! Are the police forces in America just gonna drop the charade and just start calling themselves soldiers now? Because they're basically a military force now, one that is accountable to nothing and no one it seems.

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I know.  Good times.

Errr, yeah.... "good" times. :/  I'm going to go stand far away from you now. Bye.

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The police aren't liable for the damage. So they don't care.

 

The criminal is liable for the damage he caused, including the damage done while the police were attempting to apprehend him.

 

But good luck getting any money out of him. Especially while he's in prison. The insurance company will be waiting a long time to collect from him.

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The police aren't liable for the damage. So they don't care.

 

The criminal is liable for the damage he caused, including the damage done while the police were attempting to apprehend him.

 

But good luck getting any money out of him. Especially while he's in prison. The insurance company will be waiting a long time to collect from him.

So wait... Police have freedom to destroy innocent civilians belongings with no come back? Damn.

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I'm sure everything would have been a lot better if police behaved like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bOQitInC84

 

The internet is full of social justice warriors....

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So wait... Police have freedom to destroy innocent civilians belongings with no come back? Damn.

 

First it was a stand off and second it was SWAT, not your regular police.

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I'm sure everything would have been a lot better if police behaved like this:

 

The internet is full of social justice warriors....

 

.. in an alternate reality .. far far away

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But good luck getting any money out of him. Especially while he's in prison. The insurance company will be waiting a long time to collect from him.

Wouldn't it be a weird twist in the tail if the accused actually didn't get prosecuted for the shoplifting

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Well thank goodness he only robbed a place (sarcasm) , just imagine if he downloaded a song from an illegal site and violated copyright laws. .....The neighbors houses would have been gone as well.

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First it was a stand off and second it was SWAT, not your regular police.

 

Irrelevant. That still shouldn't give them carte blanche to destroy the property and homes of completely innocent people who's only "crime" was to exist.  The police should be 100% responsible for the damage they cause.

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Irrelevant. That still shouldn't give them carte blanche to destroy the property and homes of completely innocent people who's only "crime" was to exist.  The police should be 100% responsible for the damage they cause.

Uhm...no.  Why should taxpayers cough up money because of one idiot?  The insurance covered the house. And, the insurance company will hound the criminal for the next 75 years to collect their money.

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Uhm...no. Why should taxpayers cough up money because of one idiot? The insurance covered the house. And, the insurance company will hound the criminal for the next 75 years to collect their money.

That's a pretty ###### system. I'm not okay with getting my house blown up by the police just because I have insurance.

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Well thank goodness he only robbed a place (sarcasm) , just imagine if he downloaded a song from an illegal site and violated copyright laws. .....The neighbors houses would have been gone as well.

 

...and fired at cops.

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...and fired at cops.

 

And that justifies the cops destroying a house?

Uhm...no.  Why should taxpayers cough up money because of one idiot?  The insurance covered the house. And, the insurance company will hound the criminal for the next 75 years to collect their money.

 

Why should the home owner, renter, and insurance company bear the costs of the cops heavy handed incompetence to apprehend ONE criminal for a minor offence?

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And that justifies the cops destroying a house?

 

Curious ... where did I say that?

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Uhm...no.  Why should taxpayers cough up money because of one idiot?  The insurance covered the house.

The police actions here were clearly unreasonable and excessive. They shouldn't be allowed to destroy a house and avoid any liability. The police should be held financially liable to prevent situations like this from occurring in the future.

 

And, the insurance company will hound the criminal for the next 75 years to collect their money.

He didn't cause the damage, therefore he has no liability. It was the police who damaged the building.

 

The police here acted like children with new toys - 'oh look, explosives... I wanna go!', 'can I drive the tank through the fence?''I bet we could destroy this entire house!'. Not only is such behaviour reckless and disproportionate but it's also expensive. Explosives aren't cheap and having so many officers at the scene is extremely wasteful. This speaks to the systemic problems with policing in the US.

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Curious ... where did I say that?

 

You accentuated the criminal's other crime, of firing at cops, effectively excusing their response to open fire in return (which is reasonable), but that action was far above and beyond an appropriate response. They should have backed off a little and waited the guy out.

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and opened fire on police when they tried to arrest him a short time later.

 

Making sure all of you noticed this before you comment, since the story is written as bait. BTW fixed the title.

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