Hello Everyone,
I just finished watching the movie Patriots Day, they showed the capture of the second Boston
Marathon bomber. He was hiding in a citizens boat and during the showdown, the police filled that persons boat full of bullet holes. Who pays for the damage? The police, does the boat owner have to sue the estate of the perp or does insurance cover the damage?
I understand that fictional TV shows are probably not the best source for answering a GQ, but a couple of episodes of NYPD Blue dealt with this issue, and the show generally made a pretty good effort to get some of the basic stuff correct.
In one episode, two of the detectives, Andy Sipowicz and Bobby Simone, look through a window and see the body of a shooting victim lying on the floor of an apartment. They kick down the door to the apartment in order to get in.
Later in the episode, the owner of the building asks about fixing the door. The exchange went something like this:
Owner: "The city's going to pay to replace the door you broke, right?"
Detective Sipowicz: "You gotta file a claim with the Corporation Counsel. How old do you plan to live to be?"
Owner (rolling eyes): "Terrific!"
The Corporation Counsel is basically New York City’s legal department. They might pay your claim, or you might have to take the next step and go to court.
This is how I understand that it works as well. Yes, the police are supposed to pay for property damage they caused. And if you were the victim of said damage, you should take photographs and ideally get the officers who caused it to acknowledge they caused the damage. But you also better have both insurance that covers this (I think some homeowner’s insurance does) and enough money to pay the deductible, because you aren’t going to be made whole any time soon.
Real life anecdata! Many ages ago when this ancient planet was not quite so ancient I lived in a shitty Hollywood studio apartmentwith a shitty Hollywood roommate. One night we went to some shitty Hollywood party and got hammered. WE got home and I passed the hell out. She went to the bathroom to puke…for hours…moaning for help. I never heard it but some shitty Hollywood neighbors did and called the shitty Hollywood police. They showed up and knocked, but I was passed out and didn’t hear them. She didn’t either cause of the bathroom door. So the kicked in the door and handcuffed me (in my underoose) until they could figure out what was going on. Eventually they realized it was just some stupid drunk bitch being drunk and loud and nobody was killing anybody. So they let me go and as they were leaving, they left me with a form saying who to contact about paying for door repairs. I gave that directly to the shitty hollywood landlord and roomate. Never heard a word about it after.
Ok, retract the “shitty” part about the cops. They were just doing their job.
Cool story, brah.
How about you think about it from the standpoint of the first responders, who are thinking in terms of saving lives and/or being attacked by drugged up fucktards who have no context for what is going on around them because they elected to get completely fucked up. There are plenty of legitimate reasons to criticize excessive use of force by law enforcement, but inveigling them for responding to what was clearly a call for help is not among them.
Stranger
I retracted the snide comment about the cops. What’s the problem?
The point of story was that the police gave me a form to fill out to reclaim the damage they inflicted. I was not trying pass judgement on them for doing the damage. My roommate deserves the judgement. I kinda liked being cuffed in my underoos.
So once you gave the city form to the shitty landlord, how long until he [del]replaced[/del] shittily repaired the shitty door? 
And did he ever get a shitty partial settlement from the shitty city’s shitty (because overburdened and underfunded) legal department?
To the OP’s question, usually, the owner’s insurance company pays for damage caused by authorities relating to their official duties. This includes firefighters breaking down a door to gain entry to fight a fire, police doing the same to rescue someone or, after a burglary, the cost to remedy fingerprint dust left behind by police on doors, windows, furniture, etc. Naturally, any payment is subject to specific policy coverage but in my experience, we covered these claims and never attempted to subrogate against the authorities.
In this particular case generous people paid
If you’re in Habersham County, Georgia, where they threw a flash-bang grenade into a baby’s crib in a botched drug raid and blew his chest and face apart, they’ll basically tell you to fuck off.
Usually in the UK
If police break down a door and targeted person lives in property and was hiding avoiding the police then police wont pay for damages
If police break down door of wrong house or the target had moved away while back and police intel was wrong, then police will pay for repairs.