Denver sheriff’s sergeant, deputy disciplined for sexual harassment
A sergeant and a deputy at the Denver Sheriff Department were suspended for sexually harassing fellow deputies, according to discipline letters issued in May by the Department of Public Safety.
Sgt. Robert Hitchcock was given a 40-day unpaid suspension in connection with a decade-old incident that he continued to consistently recount to his coworkers, and Deputy Diego Villalpando-Hernandez was given a threeday unpaid suspension after he grabbed another deputy’s head and simulated a sex act.
Hitchcock was given a more lengthy suspension because he’d previously been disciplined for sexual harassment in 2017, at which time he served a 24-day suspension, according to the discipline letter.
The original incident in Hitchcock’s most recent case happened at least a decade ago, according to the discipline letter, and involved Hitchcock, who was then a new sergeant in the jail, and a female deputy. The deputy was working at a console when she leaned forward to reach an intercom microphone and Hitchcock leaned toward her, pulled back abruptly and left, according to the letter. The female deputy thought nothing of it until later, when Hitchcock told her he’d leaned in to kiss her and that he’d been “zeroed in” on her lips and had been having “something of a mental image.”
The deputy was shocked at the time and told Hitchcock she had no intentions of kissing him. For years she tried to avoid the sergeant.
However, Hitchcock consistently told others the story, and how he’d been focused on the deputy’s “luscious lips.” Even though the deputy consistently asked him to stop telling coworkers about the incident, Hitchcock told the story to other deputies, trainees, and sergeants and continued to do so into at least 2018.
When confronted by administrative investigators, Hitchcock said the story was about himself, not about the deputy, and that he struggled to interpret social cues. He expressed remorse but also said the deputy gave him permission to share the story.
He will be suspended from May 31 to July 26.
The second deputy who was disciplined, Villalpando-Hernandez, is accused of grabbing a male deputy’s neck in April 2019 and simulating a sex act because he was upset the deputy did not volunteer to take on some work toward the end of Villalpando-Hernandez’s shift at the Lindsey-Flanigan Courthouse.
Villalpando-Hernandez had hoped to leave his shift on time that day in order to make a scheduled class at his gym, according to the discipline letter, but was delayed by a late call. When he returned from the call, he grabbed another deputy by the neck to give him a “hard time” for not covering the call. Villalpando-Hernandez jerked the man’s head toward his crotch and making sucking noises, according to the discipline letter.
The deputy told him to let go and threatened to report his conduct, at which point VillalpandoHernandez called him a profanity and suggested he was a “snitch,” according to the discipline letter, which noted that the two deputies had a “colloquial, jocular relationship” prior to this incident.
Villalpando-Hernandez described the incident as a joke. He was given a three-day suspension to be served June 16 through June 18.