Home Leveled in Police Siege on a Shoplifter [View all]

LITTLETON, Colo. (CN) — After a Wal-Mart shoplifter fled into stranger's home to avoid arrest, police in suburban Denver destroyed the house in a 19-hour attack with tear gas, flash-bangs and 72 chemical bombs, leaving it "a mass of debris and destroyed belongings," the family says in a lawsuit against the police.
Leo Lech and his family sued Greenwood Village, its Police Chief John Jackson and his entire force, particularly the SWAT team, on June 3 in Arapahoe County Court.
Greenwood Village, pop. 14,000, is a southern suburb of Denver.
All the allegations and quotations in the bizarre story come from the family's 10-page complaint.
On June 3, 2015, Jonathan Seacat shoplifted from a Wal-Mart and fled, pursued by police. Seacat is not a party to the lawsuit. The Lechs say he ran into their home at random, to hide. They didn't know him and he didn't know them. The only one home was a minor boy, D.Z., who fled.
Police then besieged the house for 19 hours. "Defendants used explosives, chemical agents (tear gas), flash-bang grenades, and other devices on and around the Lech home in an attempt to flush out Seacat. At one point during the use of the flash-bang grenades, a badly thrown grenade bounced back and fell upon law enforcement, forcing them to scatter.
"Sixty-eight cold chemical munitions and four hot gas munitions were launched into the Lech home. ... The defendants blasted holes in all windows and doors of the Lech home. Rubble from the blasts was strewn about the property. The interior of the Lech home was a mass of debris and destroyed belongings from the projectiles launched into the home by the defendants. Chemical munitions or other projectiles were stuck in the walls. The Lech home was completely uninhabitable and its condition posed a danger to anyone entering the home."

con't (with photo)

http://www.courthousenews.com/2016/06/07/home-leveled-in-police-siege-on-a-shoplifter.htm