4 ms·

>The homeowner deserves to be made whole and I think that should be the police departments responsibility... It sounds like the homeowner was likely made whole

>The homeowner deserves to be made whole and I think that should be the police departments responsibility... It sounds like the homeowner was likely made whole by their insurance company, the article hints that the home was insured and the Police department paid for both temporary housing and the insurance deductible. It is unknown, but in all likelihood the homeowner probably got the full policy limits on the insurance claim. Then, either: a) the insurance limits didn't cover the full amount of damages and they sued for the difference (and additional damages); or b) the insurer was behind the suit in a subrogation claim against the Police station for the claim amount. One of the problems with insurance cases is your not allowed to talk about the insurance companies. Nevertheless believe it or not these kinds of cases (house destroyed in emergency responses) are quite common, but usually it has to do with fires (not armed police chases of criminals) where in order to stop fires from spreading from house to house a team of firefighters may purposely damage/destroy houses that are not on fire to prevent the lateral spread of the fire. Of course homeowners/their insurers sue the Fire departments with similar outcomes to this case. >This story is insane and infuriating. Losing a family home/all your belongings can't be minimized, but as a kidnapping victim myself, I also want to point out the gunman broke into a home where a 9 year old boy was alone and the boy was permitted to leave unharmed. Consider the guy blindly opened fire on the police, things could have been a lot worse had he kept the boy.

fortran77 7y ago
> Consider the guy blindly opened fire on the police, things could have been a lot worse had he kept the boy. Exactly right. I'm shocked and saddened that the Hacker News community has reduced this to a "shoplifting."
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  Plus down voting to censor truth rather responding or acknowledging the fact the home was insured and the Police paid the insurance deductible.
  - shantly 7y ago
    The article just said they offered $5k total to go toward the deductible and temporary housing. It says nothing about how much that actually cost, which was surely more. That wouldn't even cover fairly modest housing for a family during the time it'd take to tear down, clear the lot, and rebuild. The homeowner claims he's out $400k total for various reasons, beyond what insurance covered. Even if he was underinsured (likely), sure, that's on him, but the police did choose to do an absurd amount of damage to the house with all their fancy toys rather than just shutting off utilities and waiting. It's not like the guy took hostages, and there's no indication they even thought he had. For attacking the house to make sense in such a time-insensitive situation they must have thought they had a pretty solid perimeter set up. They chose to wreck the house.
    - throwaway_law 7y ago
      >The homeowner claims he's out $400k total for various reasons, beyond what insurance covered. That is not what the homeowner claimed. He claimed his damages were $400k total, and the house was covered. What wasn't covered were the contents of the home because it was a rental and the renter didn't have renter's insurance. Also there were some runaway costs to the owner in the rebuild because the owner repoured the foundation (which wasn't damaged) in order to build a bigger home. >They chose to wreck the house. And he choose not to rebuild on the existing undamaged foundation and lay a new foundation to build a bigger home, but the damages to make the homeowner whole were otherwise covered by insurance.
      - shantly 7y ago
        Ah, good point, I read those were his expenses and didn't catch that was before insurance reimbursement. Looks like the actual damages beyond that are just loss of personal property in the house and whatever it cost to deal with the whole, you know, police-blew-up-my-house situation, which is surely non-trivial but likely well under $400,000.
- icebraining 7y ago
  I agree that armed robbery is not shoplifting and shouldn't be portrayed as such. But I don't see how that hypothetical changes things; from the article timeline, the boy had left the house before the cops even got there. It's not like he decided to let him leave due to the bombardments.
  - throwaway_law 7y ago
    Before the police used force the gunman opened fire on the police.
icebraining 7y ago
> Consider the guy blindly opened fire on the police, things could have been a lot worse had he kept the boy. Yeah - the boy could have been hit by a projectile, much like that 2-year-old in Georgia who was burned by a flash grenade thrown by cops into his crib. Just one more reason to avoid this kind of destructive approach except when absolutely necessary.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  If the gunman kept the boy the Police would not have been so indiscriminate in their use of force. However, the gunman being alone in the home permitted them to be as indiscriminate as they were, presumably to keep the police out of harms way of entering the premises.

fortran77 7y ago

> Consider the guy blindly opened fire on the police, things could have been a lot worse had he kept the boy. Exactly right. I'm shocked and saddened that the Hacker News community has reduced this to a "shoplifting."

throwaway_law 7y ago
Plus down voting to censor truth rather responding or acknowledging the fact the home was insured and the Police paid the insurance deductible.
- shantly 7y ago
  The article just said they offered $5k total to go toward the deductible and temporary housing. It says nothing about how much that actually cost, which was surely more. That wouldn't even cover fairly modest housing for a family during the time it'd take to tear down, clear the lot, and rebuild. The homeowner claims he's out $400k total for various reasons, beyond what insurance covered. Even if he was underinsured (likely), sure, that's on him, but the police did choose to do an absurd amount of damage to the house with all their fancy toys rather than just shutting off utilities and waiting. It's not like the guy took hostages, and there's no indication they even thought he had. For attacking the house to make sense in such a time-insensitive situation they must have thought they had a pretty solid perimeter set up. They chose to wreck the house.
  - throwaway_law 7y ago
    >The homeowner claims he's out $400k total for various reasons, beyond what insurance covered. That is not what the homeowner claimed. He claimed his damages were $400k total, and the house was covered. What wasn't covered were the contents of the home because it was a rental and the renter didn't have renter's insurance. Also there were some runaway costs to the owner in the rebuild because the owner repoured the foundation (which wasn't damaged) in order to build a bigger home. >They chose to wreck the house. And he choose not to rebuild on the existing undamaged foundation and lay a new foundation to build a bigger home, but the damages to make the homeowner whole were otherwise covered by insurance.
    - shantly 7y ago
      Ah, good point, I read those were his expenses and didn't catch that was before insurance reimbursement. Looks like the actual damages beyond that are just loss of personal property in the house and whatever it cost to deal with the whole, you know, police-blew-up-my-house situation, which is surely non-trivial but likely well under $400,000.
icebraining 7y ago
I agree that armed robbery is not shoplifting and shouldn't be portrayed as such. But I don't see how that hypothetical changes things; from the article timeline, the boy had left the house before the cops even got there. It's not like he decided to let him leave due to the bombardments.
- throwaway_law 7y ago
  Before the police used force the gunman opened fire on the police.

icebraining 7y ago

> Consider the guy blindly opened fire on the police, things could have been a lot worse had he kept the boy. Yeah - the boy could have been hit by a projectile, much like that 2-year-old in Georgia who was burned by a flash grenade thrown by cops into his crib. Just one more reason to avoid this kind of destructive approach except when absolutely necessary.

throwaway_law 7y ago
If the gunman kept the boy the Police would not have been so indiscriminate in their use of force. However, the gunman being alone in the home permitted them to be as indiscriminate as they were, presumably to keep the police out of harms way of entering the premises.