The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the Greenwood Village Police Department acted lawfully when they destroyed Leo Lech’s home. The police pursued a suspected criminal, Robert Seacat, to Lech’s house, where they entered into a 19-hour standoff with the police that left the home uninhabitable. The police used increasingly aggressive tactics to apprehend Seacat:

[T]hey fired several rounds of gas munition into the home, breached the home’s doors with a BearCat armored vehicle so they could send in a robot to deliver a ‘throw phone’ to Seacat and used explosives to create sight lines and points of entry to the home.

The homeowner claimed in his appeal that the Greenwood Village Police violated his Fifth Amendment rights first by destroying his home and again when they refused to compensate him for the damage. At issue is the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which requires compensation when a taking occurs.

Lech argued that because the police took control of his home pursuant to public use, specifically in order to apprehend a criminal, it should be considered a taking within the understanding of eminent domain. The courts upheld previous decisions that police actions are not considered public use but rather for the public good, and as such are pursuant to police power. The Tenth Circuit upheld the summary judgment for the police department, finding that the Takings Clause does not apply to damage to private property caused by police.