After a more than 18-hour standoff in a Greenwood Village home that left the house in ruin by what some called excessive force, police explained their position Monday.

Although the initial incident that led Robert Jonathon Seacat, 32, to flee into a home on Wednesday was shoplifting, Cmdr. Dustin Varney of the Greenwood Village Police Department stressed that it escalated into something far more serious.

Varney described initial communication with Seacat as “neutral to positive” that deteriorated as the hours dragged on.

After about nine hours of negotiating and with more than 100 officers on the scene, Varney made the call to send in a team of officers he said Seacat shot at, “almost killing them.”

Police used tear gas, but Varney said he believes it did not work because Seacat was on drugs. When the tear gas was ineffective and more hours passed, Varney said police were “left with no choice” but to use the force’s tactical Bearcat with an attached “boom-mechanism” to “push things open” and get a clearer view of the suspect.

This, Varney said, is what damaged the property. “It was the best plan we could come up with.”

Varney said the Bearcat is a “common tool when needed.”

“I value life more than property,” Varney said. “I made the right call because we’re not standing here over a casket.”

Greenwood Village City Manager Jim Sanderson said the city is trying to work with the homeowner who claims the house was “destroyed by a paramilitary unit.”

“We’re going through the processes and talking to the insurance people,” Sanderson said. “We’re trying to make things right, but it will take time.”

In the meantime, Sanderson said the city is working with the home’s renters to find them temporary housing.

He could not say whether he felt the house was salvageable.