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Comment by sparrish | Hacker News Reader

Why are they going after the police? It's the home intruder that should pay for the damages.

How is someone going to pay from in jail?

They garnish his wages in and out of jail for the rest of his life. Yes, it's unlikely they'll ever receive full restitution but he's the one who should pay, not the police.

Is your argument that because the perpetrator is unable to pay, someone else (the police) should?

My argument is that it was the police firing 40mm rounds blindly into the house, using shaped charges, using battering rams for a single suspect with limited ammunition is completely unreasonable. I've seen police safely breach in more dangerous situations. They could have done a number of things before making the house unliveable and should have been expected to be trained in those options. The town should be paying because their actions caused the house to be unlivable and function as essentially eminent domain of the house. The police did far worse damage and put that more people at risk than this person did though their actions.

Also he attempted to kill police officers. It's unlikely he'll get it of jail any time before retirement.

He stole a shirt and a belt. Where's this $400k coming from?

Just because he's unable to pay restitution doesn't mean they should get paid from the police. He's the bad actor here, not the police. He's the one that caused the damage by illegally breaking into their home and not surrendering.

Restitution should come from the one causing the harm, not the ones trying to protect the public from harm.

... and tried to shoot a police officer.

I'm saying in relation to where this money is coming from. If you had $400k, I can safely assume you're not stealing from Walmart

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