Police blow up innocent man's home. No recompense, court rules
A lot of people are missing some key points here, and getting angry at the wrong aspects.  Let me start by saying that I do believe the family should be compensated by some means.  They shouldn&#x27;t become the de facto victim of the crime.<p>The police did not &quot;Blow up a home&quot; over &quot;some belts&quot;.  They spent 19 hours of negotiation, de-escalation, and sound tactics, to apprehend an armed gunman who shot at police on at least one occasion, maybe two, during the stand off.<p>People are admonishing the use of &quot;Grenades and APCs&quot;.  The grenades were tear gas.  They used tear gas to attempt to get the suspect to leave a home.  The APCS are literally just armored cars.  You can go and buy one right now.  They serve 2 purposes.  They move people, and they help stop bullets.  I have friends who are alive because of their APCs.<p>Human beings die in stand offs like this.  Some are saying &quot;Why not just wait him out&quot;.  Its a great idea in theory, but you know what they say about the differences in practice and theory.<p>Being on the perimeter of a barricaded suspect is dangerous.  He has the most cover, and concealment.  He can be anywhere in the house, and he can have anything.  The police in this situation know he has at least 1 gun.  He may have others they don&#x27;t know about, he may have others in the home that the home owners didn&#x27;t tell the police about.  He may be in there constructing nail bombs.  These scenarios are unlikely, but possible, and one should err on the side of caution and preserving human life, when lives are on the line.<p>Most entry teams run around 10-20 guys.  Plus a perimeter team to keep the threat contained and not lose ground.  Add in supervisors &#x2F; command staff, logistical support, medical personnel, negotiators, etc, and you have a lot of resources tied up on this call.<p>For 19 hours.<p>&quot;Just wait longer, cut off water, there is no rush&quot;.<p>This is correct.  There isn&#x27;t a rush, until there is.  Until there is another barricaded suspect, or a hostage situation, or an active shooter, or just regular patrols that need to be covered.  My parents are perpetually stocked up for hurricanes.  I could probably live in their house without electricity or water for close to a month before I needed to start worrying about logistics.<p>Staying on perimeter for an extended period of time is a weird sensation.  You are essentially just standing behind a car or a porch for an extended period of time.  You have to keep in mind that at literally any second, you may be in a life or death gun fight.  You aren&#x27;t in immediate danger, but that may change without any notice at any moment.<p>After 19 hours, the police took in an armed gunman who invaded a home, and shot at them, without injuring him or anyone else.  That is amazing, and should be commended.  The fact that people are outraged at this is sincerely confusing to me.  The top comment says that if they just waited outside the house for a few days, it would&#x27;ve saved a lot money that was spent on &quot;tear gas, robots, and negotiations&quot;<p>The negotiations are generally done by officers, so there is no increased cost.  This is the year 2019.  Most people in my office own a robot that flies.  Any department in a city with more than 1 stop light should have a multi use bot for surveillance&#x2F;bomb investigation&#x2F;scouting.  Tear gas grenades run less than $50 each.<p>So what is the outrage over the tactical response of the police?  They used equipment they had to stack odds in their favor against a guy that shot at them, and arrested him without injury.<p>I completely understand being outraged over the lack of compensation to the homeowners.  Between insurance companies, victim compensation funds, and the government itself, they should absolutely be compensated for the damage to their home.  It appears that such victims tend to be reimbursed, which is bittersweet.  It&#x27;s good that it happens, but it makes it that more infuriating that it didn&#x27;t.<p>In summary:  Yeah, be mad that the people got screwed over by the government, but it wasn&#x27;t because of the SWAT team.  They did their job right.