On July 25, 2020, police say Wesley Little kidnapped a 15-year-old girl.
He tried to hide at Vicki Baker’s home. He knew Baker because he had done some handyman work for in the past until she ultimately fired him.
With police on his tail, Little took shelter in Baker's home and she left and called police, begging them not to destroy the house because she was scheduled to close the sale of the home the next day.
She reportedly gave police officers a key to the home, as well as a garage door opener and the back gate code.
However, SWAT officers blew open her garage door, smashed 6 windows and rammed the front door with an armored vehicle.
The property has been rendered “uninhabitable” and the city is refusing to pay for any damage.
Baker has hired the libertarian public interest non-profit law firm, the Institute for Justice, to represent her in the federal lawsuit.
Her attorney Jeff Redfern said in a press release, “in America, ‘If you break it, you buy it.’ The McKinney SWAT team didn’t just break Vicki’s home — they destroyed it. Now it is time for them to pay for the damage they caused.”
According to the lawsuit, “every window needed to be replaced. A hazmat remediation team needed to clean the entire house because of the tear gas. Appliances were destroyed. The front door and garage needed to be replaced. Tear gas cannisters [sic] had smashed through the drywall. Carpets, blinds, and ceiling fans needed to be replaced. When Baker tried to recoup money for the damages, McKinney and her homeowner’s insurance company told her that police had “immunity.”
Baker said in a statement “I appreciate that the police did what they thought was necessary to protect the community. But it’s unfair to place the costs — replacing or redoing all of my flooring, the burst pipes, the damaged roof, the blown-out garage door, the broken doors, the toppled fence — on me, just because the guy happened to pick my house and not someone else’s.”
A similar incident occurred back in 2019 in Colorado where a federal appears court rules that the town of Greenwood Village was not liable for damage after police destroyed an innocent man's home during a siege to arrest a suspected shoplifter who had randomly taken refuge there.