No changes after Denver police searched school
Eight months after incident, Rise Up officials cite distrust; police say they’re evaluating
Neither Denver police nor the city’s public school system have made any policy changes nearly eight months after a controversial search for a wanted student at an alternative high school that resulted in two lengthy investigations and lingering trust issues.
In the immediate aftermath of the April 24 search, dozens of the approximate 110 students stopped showing up for class at Rise Up Community School, principal Lucas Ketzer said. It’s hard to know exactly why students stopped coming, he said, but some students have said that they hesitated to return because they did not trust police or because of their immigration status.
“When you have an incident like last
spring, a lot of that trust is eroded,” Ketzer said. “The place they can come and not have to watch their backs or worry about certain things, it becomes clear to them that the school isn’t that place.”
The incident sparked heated school board meetings and an apology from then-Denver Public Schools Superintendent Tom Boasberg. But an internal review by the school system found that all safety personnel followed district policy during the search. And an internal investigation by the Denver Police Department also found that officers did not do anything wrong, although an officer received a minor reprimand for insulting teachers in a conversation with another officer that was recorded by his body camera.
The police and school system have not implemented any concrete changes beyond discussions with Rise Up staff members.
“We just see both institutions (Denver police and Denver Public Schools) protecting themselves instead of trying to better serve the people,” said Jacob Cousins, spokesman for Padres y Jóvenes Unidos, a community organization that promotes racial equality in schools and helped bring public attention to the April incident.
Two reviews
The Denver Police Department is evaluating the situation to see what can be learned, spokesman Jay Casillas said. Police supervisors have met with Rise Up staffers in an attempt to build a better relationship, but the department has not taken other action.
The officer who called school staffers “libtards” was verbally reprimanded and “reminded about using appropriate vernacular in a public setting and the potential impact based upon people’s perception,” Denver Public Safety records administrator Mary Dulacki wrote in an email. An officer who grabbed a teacher’s arm during the search was cleared of misconduct.
Denver Public Schools in its review found that all staff followed district policy, DPS spokeswoman Alex Renteria said.
DPS policies state that the schools have to notify a parent or guardian if police want to interview a student, except in “exigent circumstances.” If a student is a crime suspect, his or her parents must be in the interview with them unless they agree to waive that right. Schools must release a student to police if he or she is under arrest but do not have to do so if the student is wanted only for questioning.
Denver police are allowed to enter a classroom without a search warrant, which is needed only to search lockers or personal belongings, Renteria said. Unless there’s a safety threat, police need approval from DPS or a school staff member to enter a school.
“In this situation the police officers were granted access by our public safety head because there was an imminent threat,” Renteria said, citing officers’ beliefs at the time that the Rise Up student might be armed.
Ketzer, the principal, said he was not contacted as part of the school district’s review and was disappointed by the lack of changes by the district and police.
“There are still people out there that see (Rise Up students) as less than, or thugs,” Ketzer said. “This affirms to our students that that is how they are viewed.”
Nick Mitchell, Denver’s independent monitor, said his office has attempted to bring the school and police together for mediation but so far that hasn’t happened.
Mutual mistrust
School staff members and police gave conflicting accounts of what happened April 24, but body camera footage and an internal department investigation proved the school staff members’ claims that officers grabbed a teacher to move her aside and pointed guns at another.
Ketzer received the results of the investigation in November and provided copies of all materials, including body camera footage, to The Denver Post.
After entering the school, a police officer told Ketzer that he wanted to question a student about a shooting overnight in Lakewood, body camera footage showed. Ketzer looked for the student but did not find him and denied officers’ requests to search the school.
In an interview with police later, Ketzer said officers never told him that the student they were looking for could have a gun or that the student was the prime suspect in the shooting, according to police documents. Ketzer said if he had known that information, he would have put the school on lockdown and allowed police to search.
Michael Eaton, chief of Denver Public Schools Safety, arrived after Ketzer’s refusals and gave officers permission to search classrooms.
One teacher, Sarah Brown, asked why the officers needed to come into her classroom after they knocked on her door. An officer, Joseph Siemer, then grabbed Brown’s arm and moved her out of the way, despite the teacher’s verbal complaint.
In a statement during the investigation of the action, Siemer said he believed Brown was attempting to hide the student. Other officers on the scene discussed whether school staff members were helping the student escape, body camera footage showed.
While police searched inside, other officers waited outside the school with their guns drawn. Officers trained their guns on a teacher who walked out the back door and did not let her back inside, body camera footage showed.