Denver leaders defend cops’ use of chemicals
Tear gas and other tactical munitions are used to disperse crowds
Denver leaders on Friday defended police officers’ use of tear gas and pepper balls to handle a protest of police brutality that began peacefully Thursday before devolving into violence between protesters and police.
Mayor Michael Hancock and Police Chief Paul Pazen praised officers for their actions, and Pazen said police used “extreme restraint last night as they became the target of people’s rage and anger.”
Both men repeatedly blamed a small group of people for acting violently and vandalizing property during Denver protests of George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police.
As darkness fell Thursday, police used tear gas and other chemical munitions frequently against groups of protesters — sometimes in response to demonstrators who threw rocks, bottles or other objects. At other times, chemicals and flash bangs were used to disperse crowds.
“On aggregate our officers demonstrated tremendous restraint,” Pazen said Friday in an interview with The Denver Post. “They showed patience time after time after time.”
But police actions can also escalate violence, especially at a protest of police, law enforcement experts said. Dressing officers in riot gear, though sometimes necessary for the cops’ protection, can make protesters feel threatened — especially at a protest of police use of force. Police leaders handling contentious protests like those in Denver on Thursday night must walk a fine line between maintaining order and making sure force isn’t used overzealously.
Nick Mitchell, the city’s independent monitor tasked with oversight of police and deputies here, said his office had already received multiple complaints about how police handled the situation, but that it was too early to issue any opinion. He said whether his team will do a broad analysis of Denver police actions and strategy will depend on what they learn from the complaints and reviewing other evidence, like body camera footage.
Multiple protesters said Denver police were too eager to engage and that their actions were more examples of unnecessary and dangerous use of force by police.
One protester, Denver resident Desmond Allen, said she understood that police have a job to do, but that the tear gas and pepper balls seemed excessive. She came out to protest the death of Floyd — as she has the deaths of many others at the hands of police — because she felt it was an important way to effect change.
“This has been happening for a long time, and it feels like this is the only way to be heard,” Allen said, as her girlfriend stood outside the Capitol trying to get stinging chemicals out of her eyes.
A tangled series ofevents
Tensions racheted up about 30 minutes into Denver’s Thursday protest, when shots were fired toward the Capitol building. The bulk of the group had moved away from the building when the gunfire rang out, but dozens still standing on the Capitol grounds were forced to drop to the ground and hide inside the building.
Although it’s unclear whether the gunfire was connected to the protests, and nobody is in custody, the gunfire immediately escalated tensions for both protesters and police.
“That heightens fear, anxiety, stress,” Pazen said. “That has an emotional impact.”
But the protest remained peaceful as a few hundred marched through the heart of Denver, stopping traffic and chanting “The people united will never be divided!” and “Black lives matter, blue lives murder” as they went. Police first donned face shields and helmets about 6 p.m., when they stopped the group near the downtown intersection of Chestnut Place and 20th Street.
Police in full, militarystyle SWAT uniforms joined the dozens of police officers watching the crowd. Some of the protesters climbed down onto Interstate 25 and blocked both lanes until they scattered as police cars approached. Officers then used gas canisters to disperse the crowd.
Pazen said the department worked out the march’s route with organizers earlier Thursday, and the protesters stuck to that — until they blocked the highway.
As the evening progressed, a large group of protesters gathered outside the state Capitol. The intensity of the moment amplified after a driver appeared to swerve to strike a protester who moments earlier had been on the hood of the vehicle. Police are seeking both the driver and the victim in the incident, which was caught on video and shared widely on social media.
By 8 p.m., people with the protest had smashed the windows of multiple vehicles parked at the Capitol, including a Colorado State Patrol car. Graffiti was sprayed on the building’s southern walls and stairs, including the words “George Floyd Rest in Power” and the acronym for “Black Lives Matter.” Multiple windows of the Capitol were also damaged.
The group of a few hundred protesters faced a group of Denver police stationed on West 14th Avenue and screamed at them. A few blocks away, a group damaged a police substation, and officers in a line with riot shields pushed people away from it using gas canisters and pepper balls.
By 9:30 p.m., protesters were strung along Colfax Avenue in Civic Center Park. Some threw rocks and glass at the officers, who responded by firing pepper balls at people’s feet and into groups. The bulk of the protesters, numbering about 150, then moved south down South Broadway. Some in the crowd broke a few windows of businesses, including a hostel where a worker said he saw a man take a bat to the glass.
The group coagulated again at East 12th Avenue and Broadway, about a block south of the downtown public library. The crowd dispersed after protesters lobbed several large fireworks into the intersection, and police released tear gas in response.
By 1 a.m., most of the crowd had gone home, though several smaller groups were still confronting police. Streets throughout the area were littered with large stones, broken glass and white residue from the pepper balls.
In the late-evening clashes, three officers were injured, Pazen said, including one who took a rock to the head and briefly required medical attention at a hospital. The department made 13 arrests on charges including burglary and assault, the chief said.
Tactical decisions
Police leaders are often faced with difficult decisions while responding to chaotic protests and every department handles it differently, said Seth Stoughton, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina School of Law who studies policing. Police commanders may decide to not react to objects being thrown at them if their officers’ gear is sturdy enough. Sometimes police have to decide whether to stand back and let groups destroy property or to confront vandals, potentially leading to injuries or death.
“And that might not be worth it,” Stoughton said. “Saving property is not worth someone’s life.”
The development of long-range crowd control tools, like the pepper ball guns and gas canisters used Thursday, allows police to keep distance from protesters, he said. Pazen said those tools were preferable and less dangerous than going “hands on.”
But those tools have specific uses and downfalls, Stoughton said. Denver police fired hundreds of pepper balls Thursday night, sometimes aiming at the ground in front of protesters’ feet as a deterrent. Other times, officers fired series of rounds into a group of people. Some of the rounds flew at chest height.
“Whenever agencies are deploying something like a pepperball that has a kinetic impact — that can hit someone and hurt — they need to be very careful about firing that into a crowd,” Stoughton said.
Some people who were not engaging in criminal activities were exposed to the chemicals, Hancock said, and others were struck with pepper rounds, including a Denver Post photojournalist. Pazen declined to say Thursday afternoon whether officers who were shooting pepper rounds into groups — some seeming to be simply observing — violated department policy.
“We’d have to review each and all of the situations to see whether policy was followed,” he said.
Sometimes pulling officers back and having less police presence can help de-escalate a situation, said Paul Taylor, an assistant professor at the University of Colorado Denver who studies policing. Pazen said his officers tried that at multiple locations.
“As soon as officers were pulled out of that situation, it quickly devolved,” he said. “That’s when we saw assaultive behavior. Fights within the protesters would take place as would destruction of property.”
Denver was among several cities with demonstrations against police brutality Thursday night, and more gatherings are expected into the weekend.
“It’s not entirely fair that the Denver police department gets blamed for something the Minneapolis police department did, but that is the reality,” Stoughton said. “The public sees policing as a single entity. Which is more of a reason for agencies to get their act together.”