Colorado's Loveland PD Is Far From Loving

     The arrest of Karen Garner rightfully garnered outrage around the nation and around the world. The arrest of the septuagenarian with dementia on suspicion of shoplifting was not another case of an officer killing an unarmed black man, but it did highlight the danger bad cops pose to other vulnerable portions of the population. During the June 26th, 2020, arrest, over $13.88 worth of merchandise that she actually put back before she left, Officer Austin Hopp broke her arm, sprained her wrist, separated her shoulder, did not call for medical assistance, and then kept her in jail with this painful injury for hours, going so far as to manipulate her shoulder in her booking photographs to hide the injury. For context, Ms. Garner was 5'2" and 80 pounds. Hopp pleaded guilty and in May was sentenced to five years in prison and three years of parole for felony assault as part of a plea agreement in order to avoid the 10 to 30 years in prison he would have faced had he gone to trial. Now, Officer Daria Jalali, who also responded to the scene, has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor failure to intervene and faces a sentence of up to two months in jail and five years of probation; she, like Hopp, will be ineligible to be a police officer as part of her agreement. A third employee, Tyler Blackett, who watched the video with Hopp and Jalali and laughed at the woman's suffering, was not charged but did resign.

     This is far from the only instance of brutality in the Loveland, Colorado Police Department. An excessive use of force lawsuit was filed just days ago over the June 2020 arrest of Jon Siers by Officers Jeremiah Wood, Matt Sychla, and Evan Dunlap. The officers, who were training Wood, chose to arrest a 14-year-old girl for domestic violence. She allegedly found her boyfriend cheating and slapped him in the face. It did not leave any visible injuries and the boyfriend did not want to press charges, but Sychla wanted to arrest the minor anyway just to give Wood the "experience" of conducting a domestic violence arrest. Ruining a child's life is okay to these officers for the "experience." They returned to Siers' home, where he was working on her bike, and asked his daughter to come outside. She complied, and, when she admitted to slapping him (why were they not concerned about an adult dating a child, anyway?), they immediately grabbed her without notice. Siers walked around an officer to bring his dogs, who were on long leashes, inside the house. When he tried to do so, they pushed and tazed him. Siers shouted that he was trying to get his dogs and that they were being too rough on his daughter, who by this point had been body slammed and was beginning to have a panic attack. One officer then picked up the dogs, a terrier and a chihuahua, by the leashes, dangling them by the necks and tossing them in the house. Both father and daughter were arrested, both had their charges dropped soon after, and the city gave the officers not a firing, but an award. This was brought to light by the same law firm that exposed the Karen Garner arrest.

     The department arrested a pilot named Harris Elias on a DUI charge in spite of field tests, a breathalyzer, and a blood draw showing he was sober. It took over two months for the charge to be dismissed, the arrest still remains on his record, and he still has to get tested for sobriety before every flight. This is not the worst part. That same Life and Liberty Law Office has revealed a pattern of officers pulling over and arresting sober people for DUI as part of some sort of perverted sport. Former Chief Bob Ticer resigned and became the new police chief in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Still, nothing has gotten better. These are just a few stories from Loveland, ranging from a dispatcher hanging up on a 911 caller to the shooting of a puppy in August 2021. 

     It's time for the Justice Department to launch a pattern-or-practice investigation into the Loveland Police Department, from whether it abuses animals to how it responds to people with mental illness and impairment to whether it has a policy of using excessive force on children. This is not a story of a few bad apples, but a rotten tree: the Loveland PD is far from loving.