Police in Texas Totaled an Innocent Woman's Car. Why Did Houston Deny Her Claim for Compensation?

In July, police in Houston fired dozens of shots into a local woman’s car, totaling the vehicle. The city said it owed her $0.

That might make sense had Abigail Trujillo, a student at the University of Houston, been involved in a crime. Law enforcement, however, does not allege that. Trujillo was at work in a local shopping center when her Nissan Altima became collateral damage as cops attempted to apprehend a man named Jamarcus Spates.

It was unfortunate enough to be both proverbially and literally caught in the crossfire. But what came next compounded the damage. Attorneys for the city declined her request for compensation, writing in a letter that they “regret your inconvenience in this matter.”

“I feel stuck in the middle here,” Trujillo told the Houston Chronicle, which first reported this story. “This is a huge financial burden. And I wasn’t done paying off that car, so I still have to make those payments while finding a new one.”

Her story is shocking but not surprising. It is part of a larger pattern of municipalities rejecting requests for compensation after innocent people’s property is destroyed by law enforcement while in pursuit of suspects. 

Not far away in McKinney, Texas, a suburb north of Dallas, a SWAT team in 2020 threw dozens of tear gas grenades into Vicki Baker’s house and drove an armored vehicle through the front door as officers tried to capture a fugitive who had barricaded himself inside. When Baker sought compensation from the city, she was told she did not meet its definition of a victim. The government declined to pay. Her home insurance also refused to cover it, invoking a common clause that excludes damage caused by the government. “I’ve lost everything,” she told me in 2021.

It was the start of a legal odyssey that saw Baker’s case work its way up and down the courts for more than half a decade. A jury awarded her approximately $60,000 in damages in 2022, only for that to be reversed the next year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, which cited that police had acted by “necessity during an active emergency.”

That reasoning is a helpful window into the essence of the legal debate. The Takings Clause of the 5th Amendment promises “just compensation” when private property is taken for public use. But the courts are not in agreement on whether an exemption exists—and, if it does, what exactly it entails—when police power is involved.

Baker’s claim was ultimately denied under the U.S. Constitution. But the 5th Circuit confirmed this year that she was entitled to $60,000, plus interest, under the Texas Constitution. “Regarding future victims, this should help in Texas,” says Jeffrey Redfern—an attorney at the Institute for Justice, which represented Baker—told me last year, after a lower court ruled in her favor. “As far as we can tell, municipalities in Texas have just been ignoring [a] binding decision from the Texas Supreme Court about SWAT damage, but hopefully some publicity around the result will spur change.”

It would appear not everyone has gotten the message. Houston Mayor John Whitmire insists the city followed the law in Trujillo’s case. But he said he is making an exception for her and liaised with the police union to replace her car. He is also working with the city to review past claims that were denied. It’s the right thing to do, particularly given the asymmetry between the immense impact it has on individuals and the negligible effect it has on government coffers.

A SWAT Team Destroyed an Innocent Woman’s Home. She’s Been Waiting 6 Years for Justice.

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