West
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.
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Oregon
2026 NFL combine: Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq runs fastest 40 by tight end since at least 2003
INDIANAPOLIS — Oregon’s Kenyon Sadiq ran the fastest 40-yard dash of any tight end at the NFL Scouting Combine since at least 2003, posting a blazing time of 4.39 seconds on Friday.
Sadiq’s official time bested the previous mark of 4.40 seconds, set by Vernon Davis in 2006 and tied by Dorin Dickerson in 2010.
The 6-foot-3 1/8, 241-pound Sadiq was expected to be a standout during the workout portion of the event, and he started the night with a broad jump of 11-1. It was the highest mark of the 2026 combine among tight ends before Vanderbilt’s Eli Stowers topped it a few minutes later with a jump of 11-3.
Sadiq shined in the vertical leap, too, jumping 43 1/2 inches, only to be outdone by Stowers shortly thereafter after he posted a jump of 45 1/2 inches, the best mark by a TE since at least 2003.
Utah
Utahns first or eroding the Utah way? House OKs measure cracking down on illegal immigration
SALT LAKE CITY — A controversial Utah proposal to crack down on the presence of immigrants in the country illegally that had seemed stalled gained new life Friday, passing muster in new form in a relatively narrow vote.
In a 39-33 vote, the Utah House approved HB386 — amended with portions of HB88, which stalled in the House on Monday — and the revamped measure now goes to the Utah Senate for consideration.
The reworked version of HB386, originally meant just to repeal outdated immigration legislation, now also contains provisions prohibiting immigrants in the country illegally from being able to tap into in-state university tuition, certain home loan programs and certain professional licensing.
The new HB386 isn’t as far-reaching as HB88, which also would have prohibited immigrants in the country illegally from being able to access certain public benefits like food at food pantries, immunizations for communicable diseases and emergency housing.
Moreover, Rep. Trevor Lee, R-Layton and the HB88 sponsor, stressed that the new provisions in HB386 wouldn’t impact immigrants in the country legally. He touted HB88 as a means of making sure taxpayer money isn’t funneled to programming that immigrants in the country illegally can tap.
Rep. Lisa Shepherd, R-Provo, the HB386 sponsor, sounded a similar message, referencing, with chagrin, the provision allowing certain students in the country illegally to access lower in-state tuition rates at Utah’s public universities. Because of such provisions “we’re taking care of other countries’ children first, and I want to take care of Utahns first. In my campaign I ran and said Utahns first and this bill will put Utahns first,” she said.
If we stop young folks who have lived here much of their life from going to school and getting an education, it is really clear to me that we have hurt that person. It’s not clear to me at all that we have benefitted the rest of us.
–Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful
The relatively narrow 39-33 vote, atypical in the GOP-dominated Utah Legislature, followed several other narrow, hotly contested procedural votes to formally amend HB386. Foes, including both Democrats and Republicans, took particular umbrage with provisions prohibiting immigrants in the country illegally from being able to pay in-state tuition and access certain scholarships.
As is, students in the country illegally who have attended high school for at least three years in Utah and meet other guidelines may pay lower in-state tuition, but if they have to pay out-of-state tuition instead, they could no longer afford to go to college.
“If we stop young folks who have lived here much of their life from going to school and getting an education, it is really clear to me that we have hurt that person. It’s not clear to me at all that we have benefitted the rest of us,” said Rep. Ray Ward, R-Bountiful.
Rep. Hoang Nguyen, D-Salt Lake City, noted her own hardscrabble upbringing as an immigrant from Vietnam and said the changes outlined in the reworked version of HB386 run counter to what she believes Utah stands for.
“I fear that what we’re doing here in Utah is we are eroding what truly makes Utah special, the Utah way. We are starting to adopt policies that are regressive and don’t take care of people. Utahns are one thing. Citizens are one thing. People is the first thing,” she said.
Rep. John Arthur, D-Cottonwood Heights, said the measure sends a negative message to the immigrant students impacted.
“If we pass this bill today, colleagues, we will be telling these young people — again, who have graduated from our high schools, these kids who have gone to at least three years of school here — that you’re no longer a Utahn,” he said.
If we are compassionate to those who come the legal way and we are compassionate to those who already live here, that does not mean that we lack compassion for others in other ways.
–Rep. Kristen Chevrier, R-Highland
Rep. Kristen Chevrier, R-Highland, said the debate underscores a “fallacy” about compassion. She backed the reworked version of HB386, saying Utah resources should be first spend on those in the country legally.
“If we are compassionate to those who come the legal way and we are compassionate to those who already live here, that does not mean that we lack compassion for others in other ways,” she said.
The original version of HB386 calls for repeal of immigration laws on the books that are outdated because other triggering requirements have not been met or they run counter to federal law.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
Washington
Man charged with shooting co-worker in Washington Heights
A 26-year-old man had an argument with a co-worker before allegedly fatally shooting the colleague in Washington Heights, prosecutors said Friday.
Bobby Martin, who was charged with first-degree murder Thursday, made his first appearance Friday in Cook County court.
Martin, is accused of killing his co-worker, Antoine Alexander, 32, in a parking lot at 9411 S Ashland Ave about 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday, according to Chicago police.
Prosecutors said Martin and Alexander worked together at an armed security company and got into a verbal altercation inside the guard shack on Tuesday afternoon. During the altercation, prosecutors said Alexander removed his bullet proof vest and threw it to the ground. A witness, another co-worker, then told the defendant and the victim to take the altercation outside.
After stepping outside, the defendant pulled his firearm and fired one shot into the victims abdomen, prosecutors said. The victim’s firearm was holstered at the time of the argument and the shooting. The defendant fled the scene and came into contact with another co-worker, whom he told that he had just shot Alexander.
Alexander was then taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead.
Martin was arrested by authorities three blocks from his home approximately 20 minutes after the shooting, prosecutors said.
Martin was detained and will appear in court again on March 17, authorities said.
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