7-9-20 Edition

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VOLUME 38 • NUMBER 33 • JULY 9, 2020

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TheVillagerNewspaper

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US Supreme Court ends case against GV GV prioritized life over property

O

n June 29 the United States Supreme Court (USSC) denied a request for a Writ of Certiorari in the case of Leo Lech versus the City of Greenwood Village and 11 of its police officers. The denial ended Lech’s fiveyear attempt to recover money from GV for damage to a home he owned that occurred while police officers under GV’s command attempted, and finally succeeded, to capture Robert Seacat. Seacat had broken into Lech’s home and barricaded himself there while eluding police. Much of the home’s contents were also destroyed during the incident. The Lech’s received $345,000 from their insurance company for the overall damage to the home which they purchased for $296,000 in January 2013. Completely coincidentally, one day after the USSC ruling, the Aurora, Colorado City Council, received a letter from a person with no known relation to the Lech case or the matter they were discussing, which was events stemming from the death of Elijah McClain. McClain was a 23-year old Aurora resident who died in August 2019 after being detained by Aurora police. The letter to the Aurora City Council said, in part, “Perhaps you can find out how your police were able to apprehend Robert Seacat without killing him for some

This is what the house looked like after police finally apprehended the suspect alive. See rebuilt house on page 2.

direction going forward.” On June 3, 2015, 33-yearold Robert Seacat attempted to run over an Aurora police officer to escape what appeared at the time to be a simple interrogation about a petty crime. A short time later, Seacat, on foot, broke into a random home on Alton Street in Greenwood Village to hide. Aurora and GV Police soon determined his location. After failing to steal a car from the Alton Street home and use it to escape, Seacat, who was armed, barricaded himself in the house and refused to leave, despite numerous attempts by police officers over 18 hours,

including tear gas, to get him to come out. Dustin Varney, current GV police chief, was the on-scene commander throughout the incident. Early in the standoff, Seacat shot at police officers through the garage door as they placed vehicles in the driveway to prevent him from stealing a car parked in the garage as a means of escape. Later, he shot at police officers again through the second floor where he was hiding, onto the first floor, when they entered the house on the first floor to attempt to apprehend him. After every conceivable

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attempt to get Seacat to come out or capture him alive without risking him shooting at police officers for a third time, Varney authorized officers to use an armored vehicle to break through walls to apprehend Seacat alive. Causing extensive damage to the home, police in the armored vehicle found Seacat, who was still armed and resisting arrest. He was “relatively unharmed by law enforcement but would suffer severe medical complications from his massive ingestion of methamphetamine” over the course of the 18-hour standoff. Seacat is presently

File photo

serving a 100-year sentence in state prison for a long list of crimes including attempted murder of a police officer. In the aftermath, GV retained the National Tactical Officer’s Association (NTOA) to review the incident. In their 15-page report, which examined every aspect of the 18-hour episode, NTOA explained the decision to enter the home with the armored vehicle with these words: “The preservation of property is always a consideration in these situations but in the final analysis, the command staff is Continued on page 2

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