Police Blew Up This Innocent Woman's House and Left Her With the Bill. A Judge Says She's Owed $60,000.

Years after a SWAT team in Texas destroyed an innocent woman's home while trying to apprehend a fugitive, the local government will have to pay her $60,000 in damages plus interest, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

That decision may sound like common sense. But the ending was far from guaranteed in a legal odyssey that saw Vicki Baker of McKinney, Texas, left with a dilapidated house—and the bill for the damages—even though she was never suspected of wrongdoing.

"I've lost everything," she told Reason in 2021. "I've lost my chance to sell my house. I've lost my chance to retire without fear of how I'm going to make my regular bills."

In July 2020, law enforcement detonated about 30 tear gas grenades inside Baker's home, blew off the garage entryway with explosives, and careened a BearCat