What Third Amendment? SWAT Team Used Woman’s Home During Stand-off at Neighbor’s House, Didn’t Tell Her in Advance

A woman in Jacksonville Florida says
a SWAT team
commandeered her home while  dealing with a standoff with
a neighbor. She says she police came to her house to tell her she
couldn’t be there, but didn’t tell her they would be using the
home.
Via Action News Jacksonville:

[Deborah] Franz said it all started shortly after
overhearing a fight at her neighbor’s house across the street
Sunday. A short time later, the SWAT team swarmed her
neighborhood.

“The cop goes ‘You all need to leave, you can’t be in your house,'”
said Franz.

That happened around 1 p.m. About six hours
later, deputies cleared the scene and she went back home. But
something was off when she walked through the door.

“I stopped, I froze because I realized somebody had messed
with my TV,” said Franz.

Franz said her blinds were opened, her Xbox and TV were
disconnected, and a drape over her bedroom window was thrown on the
floor.

At first she thought it was a burglar but then realized nothing was
missing.

That’s when she realized it must have been police who invaded
her home, and says a phone call to the sheriff’s office confirmed
it. No biggie, say the experts. Via Action News Jax
again:

Wyllie Hodges, who now heads First Coast Crime
Stoppers, is a 34-year law enforcement veteran, and he said it
doesn’t surprise him.

“A SWAT call out is just not a normal police call out. It’s
just different and the circumstances are mandated or dictated by
the situation as it progresses,” said Hodges.

Could the Third Amendment apply? SWAT teams aren’t soldiers

just yet. Maybe you can’t say you live in an authoritarian
country until the ruling party is sending you to a gulag. The Third
Amendment has been invoked
in a similar-ish case in Nevada, where police invaded and
occupied the Mitchell home while responding to a domestic violence
report at a neighbor’s house. In Franz’s case, she wasn’t even
afforded the opportunity to attempt to prevent police from taking
over her home. She says all she wants is an apology. The sheriff’s
department would only say that the incident would get the “same
scrutiny” for “best practices” all their tactics and operations
constantly get.

The only Supreme Court decision relevant to the Third Amendment
was Engblom v. Carey, which involved the quartering of
national guardsmen in prison employee housing during a prison guard
strike. The court ruled the Third Amendment extended to the
National Guard as soldiers, and that tenancy was a sufficient
condition for the prohibition of quartering to apply. Nevertheless,
when the case was returned to a district court, it decided in the
favor of the defendants, citing the qualified immunity enjoyed by
government employees.