Deaf resident adds new claims against city
A Boulder resident who filed a disability lawsuit against Boulder last summer has added new claims to her suit that accuse the city of violating her due process rights.
Joslynn Montoya — a mother of two young children — sued the city in June, claiming the city discriminated against her by wrongly taking her children from her custody after an apparent miscommunication with Boulder police in May 2022.
Montoya is deaf and primarily uses American Sign Language to communicate. According her original complaint, Montoya was living with her children in a domestic violence shelter, and she believed she was told by shelter staff that she needed to leave by later that day. Before the time when Montoya thought she needed to depart, police were called to the scene and arrived at her door.
She attempted to interact with the officers, who knew Montoya was deaf, but they were not able to communicate effectively, and officers present characterized her as “belligerent” and uncooperative with their instructions. Montoya claimed that in fact, she didn’t understand the instructions she was being given, and that she requested a sign language interpreter numerous times throughout this interaction, but none was provided.
As a result, the suit claimed, officers wrongly concluded Montoya could not afford to pay for accommodations for the night for herself and her children and “unilaterally determined” that they would remove the children from her custody for the night.
The Colorado Cross-disability Coalition, a disability rights organization with statewide membership, joined her as a plaintiff on
the lawsuit. Montoya is also a CCDC member.
The city responded in late July, denying many of Montoya’s key factual allegations while admitting several others, including that Boulder police did not provide an interpreter when Montoya was interacting with police.
But the latest court filings from late last year bring new allegations into the case. An amended complaint filed Oct. 17 added claims that Boulder police Officers Cassandra Davick, Andrew Stiso, Aaron Wise and Brannon Winn violated Montoya’s rights by taking her children from her without due process. The filing argued that the officers infringed on Montoya’s “fundamental liberty interest in parenting her children” by removing the children from her custody without a court order or the children being in imminent danger.
“There was no danger to Ms. Montoya’s children. … There were no emergency or exigent circumstances,” the lawsuit stated. “Because (the) defendants failed to provide Ms. Montoya with a qualified interpreter for their communication, (the) defendants’ decision to take Ms. Montoya’s children from her shocks the conscience.”
Furthermore, the lawsuit stated, body camera footage from the scene showed officers telling Montoya she needed to leave the shelter within five minutes, and that she attempted to leave but officers blocked her from leaving with her children. According to the amended complaint, Montoya vocalized the phrase “ADA,” and in response, Davick said to Wise, “She’s pulling the ADA thing,” and Wise responded, “This is going to be a fight.”
All four officers are now named defendants on the suit.
Andrew Montoya, an attorney for Montoya who is unrelated to her, wrote in an email that Montoya’s children were removed “in the absence of effective communication.” He said the claims against the officers were added under a Colorado law that allows individual police officers to be held accountable for violating certain constitutional rights.
The Denver Post reported that the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Bill, also known as Senate Bill 217, passed through the state Legislature in 2020, and it was hailed at the time as a “sweeping police accountability and reform bill.” The bill, introduced shortly after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis, enabled officers to be sued in their individual capacities for up to $25,000 in damages.
The bill also included other provisions, such as requiring officers to wear body cameras and changing the standards for when officers are allowed to use deadly force.
Boulder, in turn, has denied all allegations that it violated Montoya’s due process rights. The city has requested that the court dismiss Montoya’s amended complaint, claiming any injuries or damages Montoya sustained “were proximately caused by her own acts or omissions” or the actions of third parties whom the city does not control.
The city admitted in its response that the officers did say what the body camera footage revealed them to have said, though it claimed some of the officers’ remarks were made “in a context not set forth.”
Andrew Montoya said a response is due from the Boulder police officers by Monday.