Grandmother wins $4 million after SWAT raided wrong home based on Find My iPhone app

A Denver judge awarded a 78-year-old grandmother $4 million in damages after a botched SWAT raid that relied almost exclusively on Apple’s Find My iPhone software.

Jurors concluded that Denver Police Department officers violated the state constitution by hastily seeking a search warrant of Ruby Johnson's home without a proper investigation, wrote the ACLU of Colorado, which filed the lawsuit on Johnson's behalf against Detective Gary Staab and Sgt. Gregory Buschy.

SWAT officers surrounded Ruby Johnson on Jan. 4, 2022, in Denver, as they searched her property for a stolen truck and guns. Johnson won a $3.76 million jury verdict earlier this month under a new Colorado law allowing people to sue police over violations of their state constitutional rights. Last week, a Denver judge increased the award to $4 million. (Denver Police Department via AP)

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On Jan. 4, 2022, Johnson was watching TV when she heard a loudspeaker blaring outside her home in Denver's Montbello neighborhood. Police ordered anyone in the house to come out with their hands raised.

Johnson walked out her front door wearing a bathrobe, bonnet and slippers, stunned at the sight of an armored vehicle parked on her lawn. Officers with rifles and a K9 flanked her property. 

"I didn’t want them coming in there shooting," she previously told 9NEWS. "I came out, and then they asked me, ‘Do you have a gun on you?’ I said, ‘No, why would I have a gun on me?’"

Jurors determined that two Denver police officers acted "with willful and wanton disregard" for Ruby Johnson's constitutional protection from unreasonable search and seizure, according to the ACLU of Colorado. Johnson lived alone in her home when SWAT raided it in January 2022. (Courtesy Joanna Kulesza/ACLU of Colorado)

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Police were looking for a pickup truck and guns that had been stolen the previous day from a Denver hotel parking garage, according to the lawsuit and 9NEWS. Police had obtained a warrant to search Johnson's house based on pings from the Find My app on an iPhone that had been left in the pickup.

Apple's Find My app uses information from Wi-Fi, GPS and cellular networks to determine the approximate location of people and their devices, the lawsuit states. Staab's affidavit included a screenshot of the app with a circle spanning "at least six different properties" where the phone could be, according to the suit.

Staab improperly obtained the warrant because he didn't mention the limitations of Apple's Find My technology, which is "readily available" online, according to the suit. The filing characterized the detective's affidavit as "hastily prepared, bare-bones, materially misleading" work.

Johnson sat in the back of a police car for hours while officers searched her house, causing unnecessary damage, according to the lawsuit. She told police where her garage door opener was, but instead they used a battering ram to break the door and its frame, the suit states.

Denver SWAT raided Johnson's house on Jan. 4, 2022, after an officer said the Find My app on a stolen iPhone pinged near the home. The phone had been in a pickup truck that was stolen the previous day, but officers did not locate any stolen property in Johnson's house. (Denver Police Department via ACLU of Colorado)

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Police also damaged the inside of her home, including breaking the head off of a cherished doll figurine customized to look just like Johnson and using the handle of a kitchen broom to smash up the ceiling so they could search the attic, according to the suit.

Earlier this month, jurors determined that Staab and Buschy acted "with willful and wanton disregard" for Johnson's constitutional protection from unreasonable search and seizure, the ACLU of Colorado wrote. They originally awarded Johnson $1.26 million in compensatory damages and $2.5 million in punitive damages.

Last week, Denver District Judge Stephanie Scoville increased the award to an even $4 million, the ACLU of Colorado told Fox News.

The case is the first to be litigated under a provision of a sweeping police reform bill passed in Colorado in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, according to the ACLU. The new law gave citizens a right to sue individual officers for state constitutional violations where, previously, those alleging police misconduct had to sue in federal court where the legal doctrine of qualified immunity often shields government officials from liability.

"This is a small step toward justice for Ms. Johnson, but it is a critical case under our state’s Constitution, for the first time affirming that police can be held accountable for invading someone’s home without probable cause," wrote Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado legal director.

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The Denver Police Department declined to comment on the jury verdict. A spokesperson told Fox News in an email that an internal review of the incident resulted in no formal discipline for the officers and no change in search warrant policies.

"The officers were acting based on a search warrant that was approved and signed by the District Attorney’s Office and a judge," the spokesperson wrote.

The SWAT raid destroyed Johnson's sense of security in her own home, according to the ACLU.

"Though the outcome of this trial will not fully undo the harm of that fateful day, it puts us one step closer to justice for her and others who have found their lives turned upside down because of police misconduct," ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Deborah Richardson wrote in a statement.