78-year-old grandmother wins $3.76M in lawsuit after Denver police raid the wrong house

78-year-old grandmother wins $3.76M in lawsuit after Denver police raid the wrong house



A 78-year-old woman has been awarded millions from a lawsuit against police officers after a jury found that the woman's rights were violated when Denver police executed a search warrant on her home.

Law enforcement performed a SWAT-style raid on Ruby Johnson's home after using a cellphone-finding app in an attempt to locate evidence.

Jurors found that two officers were liable for the raid, the officer who initiated the affidavit for a search warrant and the sergeant who approved it. Johnson was awarded $1.25 million from each in punitive damages and $1.26 million combined for Johnson's pain and suffering, totaling $3.76 million.

The city will be ordered to pay the total damages, despite the officers being individually sued on behalf of Johnson by the Colorado ACLU.

The legal ordeal began when a thief stole a truck from a Denver hotel in early 2022. The victim claimed that his truck contained "four semi-automatic handguns, a tactical military-style rifle, a revolver, two drones, $4,000.00 in cash, and an old iPhone 11," CNN reported.

According to the lawsuit, the "sole basis" for connecting the crime to Johnson's residence was through the use of Apple's "Find My" app, which is used to locate an iPhone user's cellphone.

The lawsuit also claimed that after the theft victim informed police that he had found the location of his items using the app, one of the officers drafted an affidavit for a search warrant based on the app's results.

The affidavit allegedly had typos in the date, with the lawsuit also alleging it was approved hastily and without following proper protocol. The approving officer was said to have only signed the approval form without adding his name, badge number, and date.

The lawsuit also claimed that the search warrant affidavit showed a screenshot from the app in question, which featured a circle that simply noted a general area where the iPhone may be. The circle reportedly encompassed "at least six different properties" and parts of "four different blocks."

"Readily available user guidance that Apple posts on the internet about the ‘Find My’ app makes it clear that this screenshot eliminated any rational possibility that the pings justified a search of Ms. Johnson’s home," the complaint said.

Police officers omitted the material information and misled the judge, the plaintiffs also claimed.

Johnson is seen on video in a bathrobe and shower cap being apprehended by police, as she was allegedly forced to wait for hours as a team searched her home.

Police also allegedly ignored the woman's instructions on how to open her garage and instead used a battering ram to smash open the door leading into it.

City officials and Denver police did not respond to CNN or NBC News' request for comments, but the Denver Police Department did release a statement in regards to the matter.

"We hope to continue to work with Ms. Johnson's family through her attorneys to resolve this matter without further litigation," the statement read.

The department also said that Police Chief Ron Thomas has ordered an internal investigation into the incident.

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Senators seek to rein in law enforcement’s cell phone tracking abilities



The Associated Press reports that members of Congress are seeking to introduce legislation that would limit law enforcement agencies’ ability to buy cell phone tracking tools to follow people’s location.

Earlier this month, the AP reported on a tool known as “Fog Reveal” that police have used to search hundreds of billions of records from 250 million mobile devices.

“It’s sort of a mass surveillance program on a budget,” said Bennett Cyphers, a special adviser at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital privacy rights advocacy group. A recent investigation by EFF found that Fog Reveal allows its customers to “access detailed histories of regular people’s lives.”

Fog Reveal has been used by law enforcement since at least 2018; now, Congress is taking note. “Americans are increasingly aware that their privacy is evaporating before their eyes, and the real-world implications can be devastating. Today, companies we’ve all heard of as well as companies we’re completely unaware of are collecting troves of data about where we go, what we do, and who we are,” said Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.)

Fog Data Science LLC, the developer of Fog Reveal, disputes the negative characterizations of its product. “We fill a gap for underfunded and understaffed departments,” Matthew Broderick, a Fog managing partner, told the AP.

Since the extent of its data collection was brought to light, Fog Reveal has received criticism from both sides of the political aisle. “Fog Reveal is easily de-anonymized tracking of Americans’ daily movements and location histories. Where we go can say a lot about who we are, who we associate with, and even what we believe or how we worship,” said former Congressman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.), who previously served as U.S. House Judiciary chairman. Goodlatte now works as a senior policy adviser to the Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability. “The current political climate means that this technology could be used against people left, right and center. Everyone has a stake in curbing this technology,” Goodlatte added.

Privacy groups are hoping that Congress takes action soon. “The lack of any meaningful regulation on the collection and sale of app data is both a consumer and privacy crisis,” Legal Aid Society staff attorney Benjamin Burger recently wrote. “Both federal and state governments need to develop policies that will protect consumer data.”