WaPo: Police misused Find My app before raiding 77-year-old’s home, ACLU says

WaPo: Police misused Find My app before raiding 77-year-old’s home, ACLU says by María Luisa Paúl:

It was a Tuesday afternoon in Denver and Ruby Johnson — a 77-year-old woman and retired U.S. Postal Service worker — was relaxing in a robe and slippers. Her plans of watching television, however, were suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a heavily armed SWAT team.

Outside Johnson’s house on Jan. 4 was a slew of officers not far from an armored vehicle. Using a bullhorn, one of the officers ordered everyone inside the home to come out, body-camera footage shows.

The officials were investigating the theft of a stolen white truck carrying firearms, drones, $4,000 in cash and an iPhone — but they had gotten the wrong address and, in doing so, conducted an “illegal search” of Johnson’s property, a lawsuit filed last week by the American Civil Liberties Union alleges.

Now, Johnson is suing Gary Staab, the lead detective in a raid that Johnson’s attorneys say was based on a faulty reading of a geolocation pin on Apple’s Find My app and a “hastily prepared, bare-bones, misleading affidavit” used to obtain a warrant.

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