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Protesters rally over police brutality
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By Lou Christopher
achris25@mscd.edu

Photo by Jason Small • jsmall04@mscd.edu Vanessa (last name withheld) protests police brutality at the Webb Municipal building on Aug. 25. Commuters showed their support with horn blasts and thumbs-up while police sat on the other side of Colfax. The district attorney’s office, located in the Webb building, is being accused by the ACLU of withholding information on police misconduct cases. After a police department administrative review, the cases were transferred from the DA to the manager of safety.

Citizens rallied the evening of Aug. 25 to demand that the Denver District Attorney’s Office increase police accountability and to call for an end to police brutality.

The protestors, led by Denver Copwatch, gathered in front of the Wellington E.Webb Municipal Building, where the district attorney’s offices are located.

Denver Copwatch is comprised of volunteers who monitor police actions and engage the public about law enforcement issues.

The American Civil Liberties Union has made recent allegations that the district attorney has been withholding information about police misconduct cases. These allegations roused the citizens to action.

Police accountability in Denver is being questioned because of this and a lack of prosecution against police officers involved in shootings or cases involving the use of deadly force.

On Nov. 11, 2005, Thomas Charles Armstrong was beaten into a coma by a Denver police officer after police were called to the area while responding to a silent alarm.

The district attorney’s investigation into the beating is over.

“It’s already been 10 months since the district attorney has decided not to prosecute, and the information still hasn’t been made public,” said Steve Nash, a member of Denver Copwatch.
Denver police could not be reached for comment.

Nash said the district attorney’s office is not doing its job of holding police accountable for their actions if no one can see the reports written about the case.

He said a recent change in how the district attorney’s office deals with police officers that might have used excessive force, is they now hide the reports from the public.

“The change in policy is that information is no longer being made public and the letters have been cut down to about a quarter of what they were,” Nash said.

The district attorney’s office replied that they are no longer the department responsible for an in-depth written review of officer-involved shootings or similar matters. The Denver Manager of Safety now handles this process after an administrative review by the police department has taken place, said Lynn Kimbrough of the district attorney’s office.

The district attorney’s office expedites their part of the investigation to move it to the manager of safety so the process can continue on.

The manager of safety is well behind schedule and plans are being made to hire someone to help erase the backlog, Kimbrough said.

The manager of safety could not be reached for comment.

Kimbrough also noted the size of the reports coming out of the district attorney’s office varied because of the detail involved in an excessive force case.

If one officer shot a round of ammunition, the report would not contain the same amount of information as a report that goes into detail about multiple officers shooting multiple rounds.

“They can do whatever they want, is what it feels like,” Max Absher, a protestor and CCD student, said regarding police accountability.

That a police officer is not prosecuted by the district attorney’s office does not mean that the officer won’t be punished, and the district attorney’s office is only concerned with criminal charges being brought against an officer for using excessive force, Kimbrough said.

The district attorney has prosecuted no Denver police officers in the last five years, Kimbrough said.

Officer Ranjan Ford was not prosecuted for shooting and killing Frank Lobato on July 11, 2004, but he was suspended without pay for 90 days after his actions were deemed to violate the police department’s use of force policy, a report from the manager of safety said.

The report concluded that Ford’s assessment of the threat posed by Lobato was not objectively reasonable under the circumstances.

Ford was at a house looking for another suspect when he and other officers came upon Lobato lying in bed. According to the report, after Ford opened the bedroom door Lobato shot up out of bed with a blanket in one hand and something shiny in the other. Ford thought the shiny object was a gun and shot Lobato one time. The shiny object was a can of soda, the report said. Lobato was pronounced dead upon arriving at Denver Health Medical Center.

Administrative runarounds were not the only thing the protestors were upset about.

A police program called “broken windows,” which employs a tough stance on petty crimes such as a breaking car windows, also has Nash questioning police action. The program gives the police an opportunity to pull someone over for any minor infraction, with the possibility of finding more infractions very likely, Nash said.

“What that amounts to is they are stopping people without a reasonable suspicion because they’re using these laws which they only invoke under certain circumstances,” Nash said.

The protestors held signs for passersby. One sign, “Honk for Human Rights,” created a chorus of horns on Colfax Avenue. Other signs called for “Police Accountability Now” and to “Fire Killer Cops.”

After Nash addressed the crowd of 20 or so people, the crowd chanted, “Bad cop, no doughnut,” to some police across the street.

The police had no comment.