Weeks after a SWAT unit used explosives in 2023 to blow off his front door, Glen Shield looks at the boarded-up entryway to his Southeast Austin home. Homeowners insurance covered most of the $23,000 in repairs, but Shield and his wife believe the city should pay for the damage it caused.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
Austin police and state SWAT officers caused about $23,000 in damage when they tore through Glen and Mindy Shield’s home in 2023 — despite an officer warning they were at the “wrong frickin’ house.”
But the city refused to admit it was wrong, refused to make the couple whole.
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Instead, City Hall has spent six times that amount — nearly $146,000 so far — on attorneys’ fees to fight the couple, who sued last summer. How does that make sense?
Even worse, City Council recently voted to raise the litigation budget for this case to $609,500 — 26 times the original damage to the Shields’ home. Such a high cost represents a mathematical and a moral failure.
In no universe should City Hall spend so much on attorneys and so little on amends to the law-abiding residents whom Austin police and the Texas Department of Public Safety SWAT unit harmed.
It’s past time for the city to apologize and reach a settlement. The Shields have suffered enough, and so have taxpayers.
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Crucially, many of the key facts about what happened Aug. 6, 2023 are not in dispute. Another neighbor asked police to check on Dwayne Brzozowski, a troubled recluse who lived across the street from the Shields. Body camera video shows that after two Austin police officers kicked in the front door of Brzozowski’s home, he came out with a shotgun and exchanged gunfire with police in the street.
Wounded, Detective Daniel Jackson took cover in the open garage of the Shields’ home, where Glen and Mindy Shield feared an armed intruder was outside. The couple called 911; Glen Shield retrieved his shotgun and yelled at whoever was outside that he was armed.
A few minutes later, backup officers ordered Glen and Mindy Shield out of their home at gunpoint and detained them in separate police cars. By then, Austin police and state DPS officers were focused on the Shields’ home, not Brzozowski’s place across the street — even as Detective Christopher Van Buren, the non-wounded officer from the original welfare check, said over the radio that the Shields’ home was “100% the wrong house.”
The confusion should have been sorted out in minutes. Instead, an hour and 20 minutes after Van Buren’s repeated warnings that officers were at the wrong house, DPS SWAT officers placed a strip of explosives around the Shields’ unlocked front door and blew it open.
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An image from a doorbell camera shows a SWAT officer placing a strip of explosives along the front door of Glen and Mindy Shield’s home on the night of Aug. 6, 2023. Officers focused for hours on the Shields’ home while shooting suspect Dwayne Brzozowski was at his own home across the street.
Provided by Glen Shield
Officers spent precious time focused on the wrong home while Brzozowski was holed up across the street with 17 firearms and a dozen different types of “bulk” ammunition. Thankfully no one else was hurt when Brzozowski, who had been wounded in the initial gunfight, was finally arrested three hours after the incident began.
Rather than apologize to the Shields and pay for the unnecessary damage, however, city claims investigator Mike Hennessey asserted the city is not liable under Texas law for any destruction caused by officers doing their jobs.
Legally, that’s correct. Morally, in a case like this, that’s wrong.
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“It just seems like the city should step up and make that person whole,” Council Member Ryan Alter told our editorial board. Alter, whose District 5 includes the Shields’ Southeast Austin neighborhood, voted against pouring more city funding into this legal fight. (Council Member Vanessa Fuentes joined Alter in that 9-2 vote on Feb. 26.)
“Especially when you look at a case like this,” Alter added, “when we’re talking about sums (for attorneys’ costs) that are so far and above what the actual damage was, I would rather us make it right on the front end than have this fight on the back end.”
We recognize city officials must ensure police and other first responders can do their jobs without exposing the city to unreasonable liability.
At the same time, the City Council has a moral duty to make amends when police action inflicts significant and avoidable harm on innocent bystanders.
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Mayor Kirk Watson, who voted with the council majority to fund the legal fight with the Shields, noted the budget grew because the couple’s lawsuit requires the city to “respond to countless discovery requests” and review “over 2,000 documents and hundreds of audio and video recordings.” The lawsuit alleges the mistreatment of the Shields was part of a broader “culture of impunity” at the police department — a characterization the city firmly denies.
“The city wants to and works to resolve litigation in a way that balances the specific facts and circumstances with a desire to work toward the most appropriate resolution for all involved,” Watson told our board.
Watson and the Shields’ attorneys each blame the other side for the failure to reach a settlement.
“The Shields gave the city an extraordinary opportunity — not simply to write a check, but to acknowledge what happened and account for the physical damage its officers caused,” the couple’s attorney, Jarrod Smith, told us. “The city declined.”
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The ordeal was so traumatic that Glen and Mindy Shield have moved out of the home. Homeowners insurance covered most of the repairs, but the couple believes the city should take responsibility for the damage it caused.
We agree. The City Council should direct its attorneys to negotiate a settlement that ends this costly and unnecessary legal fight. Do right by the Shields — and by taxpayers.