Denver, CO — For 40 years, Ruby Johnson lived peacefully in her Montbello home, largely left alone by police. Earlier this year, however, Johnson’s peace came to an end when she was watching television and a small army showed up to take her out.
That “army” was made up of SWAT officers from the Denver Police Department and they were looking for a car thief with a truckload of weapons and cash.
Johnson didn’t know any car thieves, nor did she have any illegal weapons but she was accosted nonetheless. The Denver PD received a call earlier that day from a man whose truck was stolen. Inside the truck were multiple guns — all of which became illegal after they were stolen along with the truck.
The caller told police that his iPhone was also in the truck when it was stolen and he had tracked it to Johnson’s Montbello residence.
9 News Denver conducted an investigation into the incident and found that there was never a phone, truck, cash or weapons at Johnson’s house. Turns out that police hinged their entire “investigation” on the caller’s claim that he tracked his iPhone to Johnson’s home — so they sent in a small army.
When the heavily armed cops raided the elderly grandmother’s home, they found nothing. This didn’t stop them, however, from rifling through all of Johnson’s personal effects and breaking down her door.
As 9 News reports:
Early morning on Jan. 3, a 2007 white Chevrolet truck with Texas license plates was stolen from a downtown Denver hotel parking garage, setting off a series of events that ended with the warrant at Johnson’s home.
The truck was stolen out of the downtown Hyatt Regency’s parking garage. The driver rammed through the gate as they fled – inside were six guns, $4,000 cash, two drones and an iPhone 11.
Jeremy McDaniel said he was in his hotel room when his truck was stolen. He said he kept the guns in locked cases in the truck because he thought they would be safe in the hotel’s parking garage.
Once the hotel notified him of the truck theft hours later, he began tracking an old iPhone 11 that was left in the truck. Find My iPhone pings gave police a lead to a home in Montbello before the device died. If the phone was there, police reasoned that maybe the rest of the stolen goods would be, too. No other surveillance of the property was done, according to the warrant. DPD, eager to recover the handguns and rifle, drew up a warrant and activated the SWAT team.
McDaniel said he didn’t think police treated his case with urgency, even after he told them about the stolen guns. He said he was on hold with DPD for 45 minutes and had difficulty getting them to check possible leads on the day his truck and guns were stolen.
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To McDaniel’s credit, he actually tried informing police of multiple stops that his truck made after it was stolen — none of which belonged to an innocent elderly woman.
“They said ‘Sorry, we just don’t have the manpower to check it out,’ even though there’s guns in it and all kinds of stuff,” McDaniel said. He said the police didn’t seem to care after he notified them of the theft.
They did have the manpower, however, to raid Johnson’s home with more than a dozen cops.
State Rep. Jennifer Bacon, who represents Montbello within District 7 in Denver pointed out the obvious, stating that police could’ve at least driven by the residence first to see if the truck was even there but they did not.
“Now there’s a whole street that saw with their eyes, an unassuming grandmother be pulled out of her home,” Bacon said. “They did not recover these things because perhaps someone didn’t feel it was worth the time to see if perhaps there was a truck outside or even to ask her if there is anyone in the home.”
Now, Johnson is considering moving to Houston to be with her family down there as she is scared to death of staying in her own home. She fears police may come barging in again, any minute.
“When I start thinking about it, tears start coming down,” she said. Indeed. Luckily, she wasn’t killed.
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Author Matt Agorist
