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VOLUME 37 • NUMBER 50 • NOVEMBER 7, 2019
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Despite trauma to family, insurance helped cover financial loss after police standoff in GV in 2015 On Oct. 29, 2019 the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit agreed with the United States District Court that the city is not liable for the cost of the damage to this property
This is the rebuilt home at the GV location of the 2015 standoff.
It has been well-publicized that a private home in the Cherry Creek Village North neighborhood of Greenwood Village was severely damaged during an 18-hour standoff between a known felon and law enforcement in June 2015, largely resulting from tactics used by police in an effort to apprehend the suspect without any loss of
life. The house and its owners had absolutely no relationship to the criminal who randomly chose it as a place in which to barricade himself and resist arrest. At the time of the incident, Leo Lech, who owns the home with his wife Alfonsina, was renting it to his son and his son’s girlfriend, who lived there with her 9-year old son. The Greenwood Village police department (GVPD) commanded
Photo by Freda Miklin
the law enforcement response at the scene, which included officers from multiple jurisdictions. After the incident ended when SWAT officers were finally able to take the suspect into custody, after which he was transported to the hospital by ambulance for treatment due to having used and also ingested large amounts of methamphetamine during the 18-hour ordeal, Lech looked to
lice powers...while attempting to enforce the criminal law” to maintain public safety in an emergency. The appeals court’s 17-page opinion can be read at https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/ opinions/18/18-1051.pdf. In the days just following the incident, Greenwood Village offered the Lech family $5,000 to cover their immediate living expenses. After first accepting
the City of Greenwood Village to pay for the extensive damage to his home. While the homeowner’s loss was huge and his reaction understandable, both the United States district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, whose opinion was issued on October 29, have agreed that the city is not liable for the cost of the damage to his property because it occurred while GV was acting “pursuant to its po-
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