Body camera shows SWAT raid of home where 77-year-old woman lives alone

Ruby Johnson, a 77-year-old grandmother, was watching TV in her Montbello home when she heard a loudspeaker call from outside – it was Denver Police asking anyone inside to come out with their hands up.

Body camera video obtained by 9NEWS shows Johnson, appearing confused and weary, approaching officers outside in a black robe and bonnet with her glasses on her forehead. She looks around, uncertain about what’s going to happen.

“I didn’t want them coming in there shooting,” Johnson said. “I came out, and then they asked me, ‘Do you have a gun on you?’ I said, ‘No, why would I have a gun on me?’”

What happened next on Jan. 4 shattered Johnson’s and her neighbors’ sense of safety, in Montbello – a mostly minority neighborhood in northeast Denver.

Montbello residents who witnessed the SWAT team at Johnson’s home question why police executed the warrant – in a case of a stolen vehicle and guns – that hinged almost entirely on the Apple tracking software Find My iPhone.

9Wants to Know conducted a monthslong investigation into Denver Police SWAT knock-and-announce warrants and found that they occur more often in minority neighborhoods.

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