In a city known for the most violent police force per capita, for a city of its size, you would think that the newly appointed Denver Manager of Safety, Ashley Kilroy, would have offered at least one feeble rationale for reinstating the two officers who were caught on camera gratuitously beating an innocent citizen Michael DeHerrera into unconsciousness and then lying about it while under an official investigation.
We get a hint in the Denver Post report that Mr. Kilroy did not exactly agree with the decision of the Denver Civil Service Commission to reinstate Officer Devin Sparks and Cpl. Randy Murr, for assaulting Mr. DeHerrera with a black jack into unconsciousness, just because DeHerrera was on his phone and might have been filming them from across the street gratuitously beating up one of his friends.
I am sure that Mr. Kilroy was also concerned that the two cops confiscated and conveniently “lost” De Herrera’s camera, and then unlawfully cited the hospitalized DeHerrera for interference.
It must have also bothered Mr. Kilroy that, when the officers were busted by another incriminating video source which they had neglected to destroy, they continued to lie to officials and claim self-defense, even after the video clearly showed that the officers behaved more like NAZI Brownshirts, than commissioned officers of the law.
Actually DeHerrera was on the phone and with with his dad, a Pueblo County Sheriff’s deputy, at the time the officers came all the way across the street to harass, tackle, and inflict serious bodily injury on this harmless young bystander.
Former Denver Manager of Safety, Charles Garcia was totally right to fire these thugs and one wonders what arcane provision of the civil service code was used to sleaze in their reinstatement.
Though, the more important issue to me is the message that this sends to the rank and file of the most violent police force in the country and to the residents of Denver.
No, I don’t expect that the two reinstated officers will get a ticker tape parade in their honor, but I suspect that police violence will now resume unabated as the only lessons learned by fellow officers were:
1. Destroy ALL of the evidence and by any means necessary.
Flushing just one camera down the toilet is not enough. People will have to believe you, if there is no video.
2. Confab and get your stories straight BEFORE you make your reports.
Nothing is more incriminating than inconsistent reports.
3. Don’t worry about the psychopaths in your ranks. It is more important that you
stick together and ride out the process in silence and solidarity. The last thing you need is an officer who “forgets” to watch your back, because you sided with management…even if he almost
killed someone…again and then lied about it…again.
4. Always pay your dues to the Denver Police Protective Association, so they too
will pay for your legal fees, when you unlawfully pummel a citizen into the asphalt.
And what lesson did the rest of us learn? We learned that we can not trust the folks who were sworn to serve and protect us. People in the poorer neighborhoods have always maintained that cops where they live indulged in gratuitous harassment and violence but suburbanites have always discounted this view because we tend to devalue the word of poor people who have to live in high-crime neighborhoods. Looks like they were right all along.
We learned that we had better warn our children that the most dangerous thugs on the street wear badges. We now have to tell our children “never approach cops, put away your cell phones, never run, never speak, and crouch into a ball to protect your head as best as you can.”
J. Brandeis Sperandeo
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