Posted on 06/05/2015 8:02:12 PM PDT by ican'tbelieveit
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. - "There was one gunman with a handgun and they chose to turn this house into something that resembles Osama Bin Laden's compound."
Leo Lech is more than a little upset, and he is not afraid to express it with colorful language.
After all, the house he purchased for his son now has gaping holes where it once had walls and windows. Past the exposed studs and insulation of the condemned structure, you can see artwork on the wall of a 9-year-old boy's bedroom.
"In any civilized nation ... this is the act of paramilitary thugs," he says he told the chief of the Greenwood Village Police Department.
The chief, Lech said, brushed it off.
The damage was inflicted by police and SWAT officers who were working to capture Robert Jonathan Seacat, a suspected 33-year-old shoplifter who allegedly barged into a random home Wednesday afternoon, and opened fire on police when they tried to arrest him a short time later.
The incident began Wednesday afternoon, when he was allegedly spotted shoplifting in Aurora. Seacat then drove to a nearby light rail station, where he ditched his car and ran.
Eventually, he ran into Lech's house on South Alton Street in Greenwood Village, where the 9-year-old boy was inside. Police dispatchers and the child's mother, who is engaged to Lech's son, talked the child out of the house.
The boy was unhurt, but the standoff was just beginning.
Seacat wasn't taken into custody until Thursday morning. The SWAT team said it used chemical agents, flash-bang grenades and a "breaching ram" to end the nearly 20-hour standoff.
"There was obviously some kind of explosive that was fired into here," Lech said, showing 7NEWS anchor Anne Trujillo the cavernous hole in the wall that used to protect the boy's bedroom.
Those holes are visible in nearly every room on the second floor.
A neighbor, who says the SWAT team used his home as a base of operations, points out that whatever the police used to blast the holes sent debris flying.
"When they used the explosives to blow apart the side of this house here, they broke our windshield," the neighbor said.
"There are holes just like this one all through the back of the house too," Lech said. "They methodically fired explosives into every room in this house in order to extract one person. Granted, he had a handgun, but against 100 officers? You know, the proper thing to do would be to evacuate these homes around here, ensure the safety of the homeowners around here, fire some tear gas through the windows. If that didn’t work, you have 50 SWAT officers with body armor break down the door."
Lech estimated roughly that his plan would have caused $10,000 in damage, as opposed to the $250,000 in damage he believes he is facing.
"This is an abomination," he said. "This is an atrocity. To use this kind of force against one gunman."
Lech explains that he had owned the home for two years and rented it to his son. It is now uninhabitable and may need to be completely leveled.
His insurance will pay for the structure, but Lech's son did not have rental insurance and the possessions inside are therefore not being covered.
"There was an engagement ring in there that would have been John's great-great grandmother's. It survived two World Wars, OK, but it didn’t survive the American police paramilitary operation."
Quite possible. I’ve restored/rebuilt hundreds of homes damaged by fire and contents items are often hard to find. Sometimes they apparently get accidentally mixed in with debris and thrown away. Or possibly cops or workers pocket them.
None of that seems out of the ordinary for a SWAT operation, but I don't think I've ever seen this kind of structural damage caused by flash-bangs.
Wouldn’t be surprised if drugs were not involved. Spiked donuts, perhaps.
And miraculously landed in a policeman's pocket.
I doubt that the Justice Department makes the Police Departments do anything they do not want to.
This is what happens when you give local cops military toys.
They will not miss an opportunity or excuse to use them.
I first worked with Leo about 20 years ago, and he’s always been pretty easy going. So his level of upset here is sincere and understandable.
The best way to mentally accommodate the behavior of cops in 2015 is to think of them as ants.
Ants leave the nest, follow scent trails, and swarm relentlessly any object of interest, bringing in more and more ants as needed.
That is the entirety of the approach used by police.
The homeowner said it right. (If this were a free country)big they would have cleard the neighborhood and waited him
out for a couple of days, then gone in with a squad and a battering ram. Blowing up the house, apparently trying to kill the bad guy with explosives- these were in no way “flash-bangs’ - these yahoos were just trying ouit some of their neat federal stuff. Perhaps they were deputized into the Jade Helm op.
Before the early 1970’s,how could law enforcement successfully apprehend felons without S.W.A.T. teams? Hmmmm..
You've got that right, those shoplifters are a menace to our entire society. After they are through with the electronics section at Walmart, they will be killing the entire student population of the local elementary school.
A single shoplifter, armed with a pistol, surrounded by police. What exactly is the threat to the neighborhood? Of course, the orange juice and pop toasters in that house are probably goners, but everyone else in the neighborhood have never been better protected in their lives.
Patience should prevail, unless waiting the guy out becomes impossible.
Test.
wait until it is you and your house that are on the receiving end and then see what you say.
Specifically who here is pro-criminal?
Yeah, well, I try to be on the side of reason which pretty much makes me an anachronistic outcast where ever I go these days. lol
Seacat had access to weapons, and CBS4 cameras were rolling as he allegedly shot at officers Wednesday night.
“After several hours of negotiations, members of Greenwood Village Police Department Emergency Response Team entered the home, and.... “the suspect fired multiple gunshots at the officers,” police said in a statement released Thursday afternoon.
“At 8:52 a.m. … officers and deputies entered the home again and safely removed the suspect from the home.”
Witness.... Farrow said.... “I think they needed to do what they needed to do because he was armed and not going to come out peacefully, and there were weapons in the house.”
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2015/06/04/homes-in-greenwood-village-evacuated-lengthy-standoff/
Records from the arresting agency show that Robert Seacat, of Douglas County, was taken into custody May 16, 2014 on a court hold in Colorado....According to information collected by Colorado Weekly, Robert Seacat appears to have been arrested 1 other time, dating back to June 2014.
Has a drug history.. failure to comply with probation officer and terms of probation...served time thereafter in 2008...
I know JUST how you feel!!!
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