BACK ON DUTY
Denver officers learn it pays to lie — persistently for years
Police misconduct continues to be an expensive liability in Denver’s city budget. The painful cost is felt in the wallets of residents and our collective psyche.
This past decade, the city of Denver has paid out millions in police-involved settlements. Denver police officers are historically bailed out when they violate policies.
And now Denver taxpayers will foot the bill again. This time it will be thousands of dollars in back pay for a case that has lingered for more than ten years.
In 2009, officer Devin Sparks and Cpl. Randy Murr responded to a call at a nightclub. Michael Deherrera and his friend Shawn Johnson had no idea the serious repercussions using the women’s bathroom at a crowded club would bring them.
During Johnson’s arrest Deherrera called his father, a Pueblo county’s sheriff deputy, for advice. While Michael Deherrera was on the phone, Officer Sparks yanked him by the neck and slammed his body to the ground.
His face broke the fall, chipping pieces of his teeth against the street.
Officer Sparks and Murr lied in the reports to higher-ups. They said Deherrera had attempted to swing at them. A video of the incident, caught by high activity location cameras, proved otherwise. The false-reporting led to their initial firing.
They were fired for lying and not for the physical
force they used against Deherrera.
This was back in 2011. Since then, the firing decision was appealed by the officers’ lawyer on a technicality. And earlier this month, the Colorado Supreme Court rejected hearing the case to put an end to the decade long court battle. This means the appeals court ruling stays in favor of the two police officers.
And now they can officially return to the police workforce.
If this could happen to the son of a law enforcement officer, the chances for the rest of us in a situation like this seem pretty bleak. The Deherrera family asked for accountability, and they weren’t the only ones.
The first half of 2009 was riddled with police misconduct and excessive force cases.
It started in January 2009, with Alex Landau, a black man, who was beaten during a routine traffic stop. Three months later, the incident with Michael Deherrera occurred.
And three months after that in July, four women were maced and assaulted while hand-cuffed outside of Denver Diner on West Colfax.
Ana Alicia Ortega is a close friend involved in the Denver Diner incident. She connected with Landau and Deherrera in 2009, in search of solidarity and survivor support.
At first, she felt sadness but now feels anger learning about Sparks and Murr’s potential return to the police force. Murr was involved in both the Landau and Deherrera cases. Officer Ricky Nixon was involved in both the Landau and Ortega cases. When Denver residents’ common denominators are violent police officers, there’s a problem.
Law enforcement is not exempt from the pervasive issues of implicit-bias at the workplace regarding race, sexuality and gender. Most biases that proliferate other professions tend to show as microaggressions. With police, it’s blatant aggression.
This type of aggression produces individual trauma and community mistrust that no price tag can cover. The Deherrera family settled for $17,500 in 2009. And Michael Deherrera’s peace came from believing that no else had to feel the mistreatment he experienced from Sparks.
Little did he know that assurance would be denied years later.
Denial seems to be the unspoken protocol at the Denver Police
Department. Ortega had to sit in front of the officer who assaulted her during her case’s deposition. He denied his actions that night directly to her face.
“Even when they are caught on video, there is zero accountability,” Ortega said.
The Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, a law enforcement organization, owns that wearing a badge or carrying a gun can cause people to act more aggressively. Of course, law enforcement officers carry heavier burdens than other professionals.
But that difference should not feed into a costly culture of silence and lies. When Denver police officers evade substantial consequences, it breeds a sense of professional supremacy and exceptionalism.
The implications of this type of systemic absolution are heavy. Especially, for Ortega and others who have experienced police brutality and are retraumatized by their judicial elusiveness.
Exoneration by technicality is not just. This recent decision reaffirms to police officers across the city that force and deception are more than acceptable. That behavior is rewarded in the long run.
“Even if you get sent to court, you’ll get your money and badge back eventually,” Ortega told me. “It’s a big slap in the face to the citizens of Denver.”
It’s also a sharp tug at the precarious faith placed on the judicial system. Not to mention a swift slash at the bottom of taxpayer pockets.
Judges, doctors and other professionals are fired for malpractice and unethical violations. Police officers should also be held to equal, if not, greater standards with lasting consequences.
Instead, they are compensated for hanging tight all these years.