June 26, 2009 04:37 PM UTC

Wait, What?

• 0 Comments
• by: Colorado Pols

A story in this morning’s Denver Post seems too creepy to ignore, even though it’s not directly related to politics–at least not yet.

The lawyer representing the family of a man shot by Aurora police last month says police have retaliated against him by towing his legally parked vehicle from in front of his office Monday morning.

Lawyer Derek Cole said he was on the phone with Police Chief Dan Oates on Monday morning, talking about setting up a meeting with his clients when Oates asked for, among other things, his work and home addresses.

By the time Cole got off the phone and made it back to his office, his Volvo had been towed by police for improper registration. Records showed his registration had expired, even though he had current tags…

Cole is the attorney for the family of Darius Murray, who was shot by police May 9.

Police at first reported that Murray, 19, accidently shot himself in the head, after officers investigating a car burglary shot him in the leg and shoulder. They later changed the story, saying an officer fired the shot to his head after Murray fired at them first.

Aurora police spokesman Bob Friel said the call and the towing were not related and there was no retaliation by the chief or the department.

“There is no connection between the car and the call,” Friel said. “As to the reason why we towed it, it was in violation of the law.”

After further investigation, police determined the registration record was not accurate and Cole’s registration was, indeed, current…

So, a lawyer involved in an excessive force claim against the Aurora Police Department gets asked out of the blue for his home and work addresses by the chief of police, then returns to find his validly-registered vehicle towed for bad registration? As indicated by some vaguely-described “record” later “determined” inaccurate? For one thing, how many times have you heard of police towing a parked vehicle for something so minor? Why did the police run a registration check on a legally parked vehicle with apparently valid tags in the first place? Just to be sure?

Is anyone out there so naive as to buy this for a minute?

Stinks to high heaven, folks, and somebody needs to be asking some very pointed questions about what really happened here. The first person who springs to our mind, of course, is Aurora city councilman and U.S. Senate candidate Ryan Frazier. As an official directly in an oversight role, we would expect him to be all over this–unless there’s some reason he doesn’t want to be…