SHERIDAN, Colo. (KDVR) — An elderly couple in Sheridan says a SWAT team from the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department caused serious damage to their house Tuesday morning looking for a suspect who wasn’t at the home.
The couple asked FOX31 not to use their last name but the Problem Solvers have learned police were looking for the couple’s grandson, 20-year-old Shoveen Hainesworth.
“He was here the night before but he went home,” around 11 p.m. Monday according to the grandfather Ernie, whose last name is different from his grandson’s.
He told FOX31 he and his wife had no idea their grandson was wanted for attempted murder, assault, felony menacing, illegal discharge of a weapon and racketeering.
“We were sleeping and all of a sudden there was lights, somebody on a horn saying we need you to step out of the house,” Ernie said.
As soon as the couple came outside they told deputies the house was empty but said the SWAT team decided to toss tear gas canisters through the windows to make sure.
“I left the doors open, I said, ‘You guys can go and look. Take a look and see, there’s nobody else but me and my wife,'” Ernie said. “They busted my windows, my front door, they tore my ceiling in my bedroom and they said a dog did it but there’s no way a dog could’ve done that.”
The house’s front door and numerous windows are now boarded up and fans have been placed inside the house to disperse the tear gas. Outside, neighbors had to help Ernie put his fence back up after he said SWAT vehicles drove through his fence to station deputies around the house.
After the SWAT team confirmed Hainesworth wasn’t in the home, Ernie said they made excuses for the damage.
“‘We thought you were lying. We didn’t know,'” Ernie said they told him. “There was no reason for it.”
The couple is now staying in a hotel, hoping their homeowner’s insurance will reimburse them for the broken windows, the busted front door, and the ceiling that collapsed in one bedroom.
“My wife is in tears. She works so hard to get this house together and these guys just ruined it in less than an hour,” Ernie said.
A spokesman for Arapahoe County told FOX31 the couple will have to file a claim with the Division of Risk Management to get reimbursed for the repairs and then it will be up to the County Board of Commissioners to approve any settlement.
The Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Department was serving the warrant on behalf of Denver Police.
The Denver Police Department was serving a total of ten warrants Tuesday morning for ten suspects who had been indicted by a grand jury in late March for numerous felonies, including conspiracy to commit murder and racketeering.
Hainesworth was captured, just not at his grandparents’ house. He’s being held on a $300,000 bond and has his first court appearance Thursday.
