Black Grandmother Wrongly Raided By Denver Police Gets $3.76 Million

Photo: Denver Police Department / ACLU of Colorado A Colorado jury awarded a 78-year-old Black woman millions of dollars after Denver police mistakenly raided her home and wrongly arrested her. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Colorado announced that Ruby Johnson was awarded $3.76 million on Friday (March 1) in state court, according to a Monday (March 5) statement. Body camera footage shows a SWAT team raiding Johnson’s home in Denver’s Montebello neighborhood right after she got out of the shower on January 4, 2022. Several armed officers surrounded the grandmother, who was dressed in a bathrobe and shower cap, as they questioned her near an armored truck outside her house. It also left part of her longtime residence and some of her personal belongings destroyed, according to the organization. The lawsuit, which was filed by the ACLU on Johnson’s behalf, alleges Detective Gary Staab and Sergeant Gregory Buschy hastily obtained a search warrant without sufficient probable cause. Authorities were looking for a stolen vehicle containing several firearms and used cellphone data to target Johnson’s house, even though there was no evidence suggesting the vehicle and weapons were at the grandmother’s residence. “The Colorado Constitution requires that search warrants...