May 19, 2011 09:12 PM UTC

Denver Law Enforcement Scandal Timeline

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• by: redstateblues

( – promoted by Colorado Pols)

While insiders and observers of the mayoral campaigns are content to discuss abortion, evolution, and the merits of negative campaigning, arguably the most important issue facing Denver’s next mayor is being largely ignored by the media and the campaigns themselves. Bucking that trend, Westword has put together a timeline that shows how, in the span of less than a year, the need for change inside Denver’s law enforcement institutions*–and in the ways that the City and County respond to incidents of brutality–has become blatantly apparent.

Some of the highlowlights and a poll below the fold. Be sure to visit the actual Westword post to see the full compilation of videos and links.

July 9, 2010: Homeless street preacher Marvin Booker dies in jail in the new Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center.

August 14, 2010: News breaks that Perea has chosen not to fire officers Devin Sparks and Randy Murr for the beating of Michael DeHerrera, 23, outside a LoDo nightclub on the same night Watkins says he was assaulted by the police, overriding Rosenthal’s recommendation. Instead, Perea docked each of the officers three days’ pay, even though a video of the altercation, captured by the DPD’s High Activity Location Observation (HALO) surveillance system, shows the officers tackling DeHerrera, beating him with a sap and slamming his ankle in a car door after he’d apparently done nothing other than make a call on his cell phone.

August 17, 2010: Another HALO video surfaces of 32-year-old Mark Ashford being hit by police officers in a March 17, 2010 incident

August 17, 2010: Mayor John Hickenlooper, then running for governor, announces that he wants the FBI to look into the incident.

September 15, 2010: In response to City Council inquiries, the City Attorney’s office announces that Denver has spent nearly $6.2 million since 2004 to settle lawsuits involving police officers, a number the office says has remained fairly static.

September 19, 2010: Denver police announce that in the previous month, officer-initiated investigations declined by nearly 25 percent from the year before, a drop that some officers attributed to fears about losing their jobs if other media controversies break out.

January 12, 2011: New Denver mayor Bill Vidal indicates at his swearing-in ceremony that police brutality concerns will be one of the top priorities of his administration. Soon after, he promises to resolve all ongoing cases of alleged police misconduct before he leaves office in July.

January 12, 2011: Community College of Denver student Alexander Landau files a lawsuit alleging that he was pulled over for an illegal left turn on January 15, 2009 and beaten him bloody with flashlights and a police radio. One of the officers was Randy Murr, who was also involved in the DeHerrera incident. Landau was eventually taken to Denver Health to be treated for a broken nose, lacerations and closed head injuries — but not before he demanded somebody take photos of him.

March 25, 2011: New Manager of Safety Charles Garcia fires officers Sparks and Murr for their involvement in the DeHerrera incident, because they were found to have lied during the internal investigation.

April 11, 2011: Garcia fires two more officers, Ricky Nixon and Kevin Devine, over a July 2009 incident at the Denver Diner in which cops allegedly beat women to the ground and maced one of them. Nixon was one of the three officers named in the Alex Landau beating.

May 9, 2011: All officers involved in the jailhouse death of Marvin Booker are cleared of any wrongdoing. At the press conference announcing the decision, city officials release videos of the incident and a forty-page report from the investigation, which Rosenthal calls “one of the most comprehensive and thorough that I have seen since I began monitoring activities six and a half years ago.”

May 10, 2011: Booker’s family members call on federal investigators to look into the jailhouse-death investigation.

*an earlier version of this diary wrongly insinuated that the timeline was related solely to DPD. It has been corrected.

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