3 ms·

Indiana city doesn't have to pay innocent mom $16,000 after police wrecked home

63 points by bikenaga 1y ago

rectang 1y ago
[flagged]
- worik 1y ago
  That has started already
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  [flagged]
voidfunc 1y ago
Ridiculous but doesn't even scratch the tip of the iceberg anymore. We've completely lost the plot with our courts "strict" interpretation of laws.
- gerdesj 1y ago
  [flagged]
- hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
  Agreed. I think most people would agree the outcome here is profoundly unjust: this woman had her house destroyed with no compensation, and as a result police have no incentive to not go ballistic when a more constrained approach would suffice. People can only be fucked over so much before they start to consider that the whole system is corrupt, including the courts. The only reason this hasn't been decided the other way is that it affects relatively few individuals, so it's not a rallying cry for most people.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
nemo44x 1y ago
Sounds messed up but clearly there’s an opportunity to sell insurance for this type of event. Sort of unbelievable existing insurance doesn’t cover it.
- idontwantthis 1y ago
  That’s what I was wondering too. Should be a really cheap premium, no?
  - morkalork 1y ago
    Perhaps professional insurance for the police like what doctors, contractors and everyone else has to cover damages they do?
    - actionfromafar 1y ago
      Do doctors, contractors and everyone else have qualified immunity? That's probably the culprit. When you have that, you get used to not having any responsibility.
ggm 1y ago
Wouldn't have been cheaper for the city to make an ex-gratia payment?
- kg 1y ago
  It's important for the victim not to get anything, I guess.
hahahacorn 1y ago
Trying to make broad assertions regarding who is financially responsible for the lawful execution of police power seems useless. In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay if the accessing of a device from a given IP should be enough to escalate a search warrant to that of a destructive one. How did they make the trace? Is it possible the suspect was using a VPN? How did they verify they were never actually at that address? Has this police department executive destructive search warrants based on IP address traces that ended up being incorrect, and then they continued doing so knowing it can likely be inaccurate? This is something your insurance should be required to cover or should be part of a standard homeowners insurance package, and the insurance company can sue the government and try to get those questions answered from the city. The attempt to blame this on excessive policing in a broad stroke seems to be the wrong angle that doesn’t address the nuance of these situations.
- torben-friis 1y ago
  >In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay Do they ever? Even if they were guilty, wouldn’t it be on taxpayers to pay? If it is so, then any investigation about potential wrongdoing should be separate from reimbursing the victim - they suffered damage by a public entity without personal fault, and that should be covered whether protocol was followed or not. That way, there is no public economic incentive to declare police innocent, which is an extra plus.
  - hahahacorn 1y ago
    What? The incentive issue of police mishaps being paid from taxpayer funds is entirely independent. > any investigation about potential wrongdoing should be separate from reimbursing the victim I explicitly stated that insurance should reimburse the victim and then the insurance company can pursue damages for police wrongdoing after.
    - torben-friis 1y ago
      >I explicitly stated that insurance should reimburse the victim and then the insurance company can pursue damages for police wrongdoing after. I meant public funds, regardless of insurance. As in, if you (or the insurer) need to pursue damages then state payment is tied to wrongdoing. My point was that if public action results in a loss it should be reimbursed period. A citizen doesn’t care (only) that protocol was followed, they care about a broken house either way.
nzeid 1y ago
> They were searching for a suspect, John Parnell Thomas, who they believed, based on his IP address, had accessed the internet from Hadley house. Setting aside politics here... Was the IP address recycled? I used to see this all the time with my old home providers but much less often now. However I go through about 40 IP addresses a week on my mobile data.
nkrisc 1y ago
If the government can accidentally wreck your home and not pay for it, they can intentionally do it too.
- estimator7292 1y ago
  They can also seize any amount of your property at any time and nothing short of a state supreme court can do anything about it
southernplaces7 1y ago
This other case, referenced in the same article, is even more deranged. For police to feel justified by such absurdly small reasons to mount a full blown militarized assault that they're entitled to offer no compensation for, corrupts every part of the decision-making systems above and below them. It's blatantly disturbed and sick. https://reason.com/2025/10/10/this-indiana-city-doesnt-have-to-pay-an-innocent-mom-16000-after-police-wrecked-her-home-court-rules/?nab=1 https://reason.com/2025/10/10/this-indiana-city-doesnt-have-...
breadwinner 1y ago
They should have tried the negligence angle. Why did the police make this mistake? Somebody didn't do their job correctly. The city is responsible for that.
- hahahacorn 1y ago
  It’s not the fault of the individual trying to secure a $16k payout from a multi billion dollar institution for not acting optimally. Insurance company should do that.
fzeroracer 1y ago
This assertion stood out the most to me and shows how much of our court system is utter bullshit: > As a reminder, Hadley urges us to hold that: “innocent homeowner[s] with no connection to the sought-after sus- pect[,] whose property the [government] intentionally and se- verely damage[s] through a military-style assault … to exe- cute a warrant to apprehend [a] suspect … when the property otherwise would not have been damaged” are owed compen- sation. > Mindful of our decisions’ precedential effect on future cases, we have concerns about the administrability of Had- ley’s proposed holding. It raises difficult questions, not least of which is, how does one determine innocence? For example, must an ancillary criminal proceeding conclude to show in- nocence before proceeding with a takings claim? Does having “no connection” with a suspect—as Hadley asserted herself— render the landowner “innocent”? Like come on, this seems like a nonsensical rebuttal. We know she was innocent and that the police wrongfully raided the wrong home. Our court system is supposed to be built on the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. The judge argued that she should've instead brought a case against the police to try and surmount the qualified immunity defense but they're just kicking the ball down another losing court decision.
OutOfHere 1y ago
Let's face it. We live in a police state -- where the police have absolute power and zero liability. Now what. The best thing to do is to pay fewer taxes in every way possible. This applies particularly to businesses. Already we're paying tariff taxes too now. In many ways, the more people pay in aggregate, the more militarized the police get, and the more the people get abused.
silexia 1y ago
This can easily be changed - just ask your representatives to vote for laws on this.
josefritzishere 1y ago
If you read the judges' decision; it's indefensible. The decison relies on Johnson v. Manitowoc County which is between a landlord and tenant... not a city government and a private citizen. The judge calls the situation "identical" which is patently false. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448/pdf/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448-0.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448/pd...
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  [flagged]
antibull 1y ago
[dead]

63 points by bikenaga 1y ago

rectang 1y ago

[flagged]

worik 1y ago
That has started already
actionfromafar 1y ago
[flagged]

voidfunc 1y ago

Ridiculous but doesn't even scratch the tip of the iceberg anymore. We've completely lost the plot with our courts "strict" interpretation of laws.

gerdesj 1y ago
[flagged]
hn_throwaway_99 1y ago
Agreed. I think most people would agree the outcome here is profoundly unjust: this woman had her house destroyed with no compensation, and as a result police have no incentive to not go ballistic when a more constrained approach would suffice. People can only be fucked over so much before they start to consider that the whole system is corrupt, including the courts. The only reason this hasn't been decided the other way is that it affects relatively few individuals, so it's not a rallying cry for most people.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

nemo44x 1y ago

Sounds messed up but clearly there’s an opportunity to sell insurance for this type of event. Sort of unbelievable existing insurance doesn’t cover it.

idontwantthis 1y ago
That’s what I was wondering too. Should be a really cheap premium, no?
- morkalork 1y ago
  Perhaps professional insurance for the police like what doctors, contractors and everyone else has to cover damages they do?
  - actionfromafar 1y ago
    Do doctors, contractors and everyone else have qualified immunity? That's probably the culprit. When you have that, you get used to not having any responsibility.

ggm 1y ago

Wouldn't have been cheaper for the city to make an ex-gratia payment?

kg 1y ago
It's important for the victim not to get anything, I guess.

hahahacorn 1y ago

Trying to make broad assertions regarding who is financially responsible for the lawful execution of police power seems useless. In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay if the accessing of a device from a given IP should be enough to escalate a search warrant to that of a destructive one. How did they make the trace? Is it possible the suspect was using a VPN? How did they verify they were never actually at that address? Has this police department executive destructive search warrants based on IP address traces that ended up being incorrect, and then they continued doing so knowing it can likely be inaccurate? This is something your insurance should be required to cover or should be part of a standard homeowners insurance package, and the insurance company can sue the government and try to get those questions answered from the city. The attempt to blame this on excessive policing in a broad stroke seems to be the wrong angle that doesn’t address the nuance of these situations.

torben-friis 1y ago
>In this case, it seems obvious that the police should have to pay Do they ever? Even if they were guilty, wouldn’t it be on taxpayers to pay? If it is so, then any investigation about potential wrongdoing should be separate from reimbursing the victim - they suffered damage by a public entity without personal fault, and that should be covered whether protocol was followed or not. That way, there is no public economic incentive to declare police innocent, which is an extra plus.
- hahahacorn 1y ago
  What? The incentive issue of police mishaps being paid from taxpayer funds is entirely independent. > any investigation about potential wrongdoing should be separate from reimbursing the victim I explicitly stated that insurance should reimburse the victim and then the insurance company can pursue damages for police wrongdoing after.
  - torben-friis 1y ago
    >I explicitly stated that insurance should reimburse the victim and then the insurance company can pursue damages for police wrongdoing after. I meant public funds, regardless of insurance. As in, if you (or the insurer) need to pursue damages then state payment is tied to wrongdoing. My point was that if public action results in a loss it should be reimbursed period. A citizen doesn’t care (only) that protocol was followed, they care about a broken house either way.

nzeid 1y ago

> They were searching for a suspect, John Parnell Thomas, who they believed, based on his IP address, had accessed the internet from Hadley house. Setting aside politics here... Was the IP address recycled? I used to see this all the time with my old home providers but much less often now. However I go through about 40 IP addresses a week on my mobile data.

nkrisc 1y ago

If the government can accidentally wreck your home and not pay for it, they can intentionally do it too.

estimator7292 1y ago
They can also seize any amount of your property at any time and nothing short of a state supreme court can do anything about it

southernplaces7 1y ago

This other case, referenced in the same article, is even more deranged. For police to feel justified by such absurdly small reasons to mount a full blown militarized assault that they're entitled to offer no compensation for, corrupts every part of the decision-making systems above and below them. It's blatantly disturbed and sick. https://reason.com/2025/10/10/this-indiana-city-doesnt-have-to-pay-an-innocent-mom-16000-after-police-wrecked-her-home-court-rules/?nab=1 https://reason.com/2025/10/10/this-indiana-city-doesnt-have-...

breadwinner 1y ago

They should have tried the negligence angle. Why did the police make this mistake? Somebody didn't do their job correctly. The city is responsible for that.

hahahacorn 1y ago
It’s not the fault of the individual trying to secure a $16k payout from a multi billion dollar institution for not acting optimally. Insurance company should do that.

fzeroracer 1y ago

This assertion stood out the most to me and shows how much of our court system is utter bullshit: > As a reminder, Hadley urges us to hold that: “innocent homeowner[s] with no connection to the sought-after sus- pect[,] whose property the [government] intentionally and se- verely damage[s] through a military-style assault … to exe- cute a warrant to apprehend [a] suspect … when the property otherwise would not have been damaged” are owed compen- sation. > Mindful of our decisions’ precedential effect on future cases, we have concerns about the administrability of Had- ley’s proposed holding. It raises difficult questions, not least of which is, how does one determine innocence? For example, must an ancillary criminal proceeding conclude to show in- nocence before proceeding with a takings claim? Does having “no connection” with a suspect—as Hadley asserted herself— render the landowner “innocent”? Like come on, this seems like a nonsensical rebuttal. We know she was innocent and that the police wrongfully raided the wrong home. Our court system is supposed to be built on the presumption of innocent until proven guilty. The judge argued that she should've instead brought a case against the police to try and surmount the qualified immunity defense but they're just kicking the ball down another losing court decision.

OutOfHere 1y ago

Let's face it. We live in a police state -- where the police have absolute power and zero liability. Now what. The best thing to do is to pay fewer taxes in every way possible. This applies particularly to businesses. Already we're paying tariff taxes too now. In many ways, the more people pay in aggregate, the more militarized the police get, and the more the people get abused.

silexia 1y ago

This can easily be changed - just ask your representatives to vote for laws on this.

josefritzishere 1y ago

If you read the judges' decision; it's indefensible. The decison relies on Johnson v. Manitowoc County which is between a landlord and tenant... not a city government and a private citizen. The judge calls the situation "identical" which is patently false. https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448/pdf/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448-0.pdf https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCOURTS-ca7-24-02448/pd...

ranger_danger 1y ago
[flagged]

antibull 1y ago

[dead]