[AUDIO LOGO]
VICKI BAKER: The summer of 2020, I had just
gotten my house all ready for sale,
spending a lot of money fixing it up.
I'd spent probably $20,000 then, getting it ready for sale,
and then sold it.
It was under contract for one week,
the day that this happened.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
I guess he knew that I was living
in Montana most of the time.
He must have seen a For Sale sign on the house.
He showed up at my house with this young 15-year-old girl
that he was on the run with.
- [OFFICER SPEAKING VIA MEGAPHONE]
VICKI BAKER: Neighbors had called me
and showed me a little clip, you know, of what was going on.
And they were recording all the--
it was, like, 30 tear gas canisters.
Gone in through the roof, gone in through six windows.
The girl had come out, they said,
about 3 hours before that.
She told him that he had a backpack with guns in it.
And so the police had to be cautious.
I understand that.
Now, he never fired at them that I am aware of.
They put a bomb on the garage door and blew that off.
They used a humvee to run down my back fence.
And what I was told is the reason they did a lot of that
was to bring about confusion, you know, to the perpetrator
inside.
And they call it shock and awe.
So while they were doing all of this damage to my house,
he apparently killed himself.
The tear gas, unfortunately, got my daughter's little chihuahua.
And we ended up having to put him to sleep.
The hazmat team threw everything out.
They had two huge containers in front of my house,
and both were filled to the full--
I mean, couches, chairs, dishes, everything went.
Everything that you have in the house.
I remember calling my insurance company
and thinking that everything was going to be covered.
She said, we don't pay those claims.
And I said, you don't understand.
I'm trying to tell her, you don't understand.
And she's telling me, you don't understand.
We've never paid a claim like this.
And I said, I want to talk to your insurance company.
Please.
And she said fine, you know?
But you won't get a dime.
Those were her exact words.
I laid on my couch here for probably
a couple of days just crying.
I mean, I could barely do anything,
because now, my house was no longer sold.
I couldn't pay off this property.
I was forced into semi-retirement--
mostly retirement--
when the cancer came, because I could
no longer call on patients.
JEFF REDFERN: My name is Jeff Redfern,
and I'm an attorney at the Institute for Justice.
The government has this power called eminent domain, which
means, you know, the most familiar use of it
would be like taking your house for a road.
They can take your property if they need to for public use,
but they have to pay you just compensation.
And that's in the fifth amendment.
So we argued that the destruction of Vicki Baker's
house in order to take a dangerous criminal
off the street was a taking, just like it would
be a taking if they took your house to build a road,
or if your house were destroyed because they built
a dam and your land got flooded, or any number of other ways
that government can intentionally
destroy private property-- sometimes,
for very good reasons.
It's a very good thing that the police
got this guy off the street, and nobody's disputing that.
It's just about, you know, who has to bear the cost of that.
You know, the answer to that can't be, well, Vicki Baker--
you know, a cancer survivor retiree--
has to bear over $60,000 in order
to pay for something that the town
could pay for if it chose to.
VICKI BAKER: I felt vindicated.
I felt, OK, somebody understands.
Somebody else doesn't want this to happen to anybody else.
And they knew by giving me a win that it
might help other individuals.
I feel we will win this thing, because I feel it is right.
I feel God is on our side.