The people of Denver should not have to pay the price for a bureaucrat who failed to do his job.

Ron Perea’s failure to fire Officers Murr and Sparks for their brutal beating of Michael DeHerrera and their despicable cover-up of the assault rightly cost Perea his job. Both officers received nothing more than slaps on the wrist and were permitted to continue terrorizing the people of Denver. This wasn’t an isolated incident- just three months earlier; Officer Murr was one of a trio of officers who beat Community College of Denver student Alex Landau so badly that the city ended up settling for nearly $800,000.

Denver took a step backward today.

There is a time for process, for paperwork and for following regulations, but when the consequences of years of tangled red tape literally puts residents at risk of losing life and limb, then leadership and principles must prevail.

If these two officers will once again patrol the streets of Denver, their reinstatement is more than an insult to the residents of our city; it is a threat. We welcome Interim Manager of Safety Ashley Kilroy’s disagreement with the Civil Service Commission, and we look forward to the City Attorney’s appeal of this decision. But no matter how this bureaucratic process plays out, we call upon Mayor Michael Hancock to exercise the leadership he promised us and restore our faith in Denver law enforcement by keeping these brutes off the street.

Landmark Human Rights Case Finds that Failure to Enforce a Restraining Order and Indifference to Domestic Violence Led to Daughters’ Deaths

WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a landmark decision, an international tribunal has found the U.S. government responsible for human rights violations against a Colorado woman and her three deceased children who were victims of domestic violence.

Jessica Lenahan (Gonzales) v. United States is the first case brought by a domestic violence survivor against the U.S. before an international human rights body, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). The IACHR ruling also sets forth comprehensive recommendations for changes to U.S. law and policy pertaining to domestic violence.

The case concerns a tragic 1999 incident in which police in Castle Rock, Colorado failed to respond to Jessica Lenahan’s repeated calls for help after her estranged husband, Simon Gonzales, kidnapped their three young children in violation of a domestic violence restraining order. Ten hours after Lenahan’s first call to the police, her husband drove up to the Castle Rock Police Department and began firing his gun at the police station. The police returned fire, killing Gonzales. Inside the truck, the police found the bodies of the three girls – Rebecca, Katheryn, and Leslie – who had been shot dead. Local authorities failed to conduct a proper investigation into the children’s deaths, resulting in questions about the cause, time, and place of their deaths that remain to this day.

“I have waited 12 years for justice, knowing in my heart that police inaction led to the tragic and untimely deaths of my three young daughters,” said Lenahan. “Today’s decision tells the world that the government violated my human rights by failing to protect me and my children from domestic violence.”

Lenahan is represented by the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law, the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic and the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The commission’s determination that the United States violated Ms. Lenahan’s and her children’s human rights by failing to ensure their protection from domestic violence has far-reaching implications,” said Professor Caroline Bettinger-Lopez, director of the Human Rights Clinic at the University of Miami School of Law. “As our country seeks to promote human rights of women and children around the world, we must also look at our own record here at home.”

The commission’s decision stands in stark contrast to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Town of Castle Rock v. Jessica Gonzales (2005), where the justices ruled that Lenahan (then Gonzales) had no constitutional right to police protection, and that the failure of the police to enforce Lenahan's order of protection was not unconstitutional. Lenahan then filed a petition against the U.S. before the IACHR, alleging violations of international human rights.

“Now that the commission has appropriately found the police and the United States responsible for their appalling lack of action, it is critical that they be held accountable,” said Lenora Lapidus, director of the ACLU Women’s Rights Project. “We can no longer accept police departments' failure to treat domestic violence seriously and to regard it as simply a private matter unworthy of serious police attention.”

Established in 1959, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is charged with promoting the observance of and respect for human rights throughout the Americas. The commission is expressly authorized to examine allegations of human rights violations by all 35 member-states of the Organization of American States, which includes the United States, and to investigate specific allegations of violations of Inter-American human rights treaties, declarations and other legal instruments.

"We know that the issue of violence against women is one that the Obama Administration cares deeply about,” said Peter Rosenblum, director of the Columbia Law School Human Rights Clinic. “We encourage the Administration to work with the appropriate state and local officials to address and adapt the Commission’s recommendations in a meaningful way."

More information on this case can be found at:

www.aclu.org/human-rights-womens-rights/jessica-gonzales-v-usa; www.law.miami.edu/hrc/hrc_gonzalez_usa.php
www.law.columbia.edu/human-rights-institute/initiatives/interamerican/gonzales
www.aclu-co.org/case/town-castle-rock-v-gonzales

Settlement Terms Include Improvement in Police Policy on Crowd Control

Attorneys for City and County of Denver have agreed to pay $200,000 and make changes in police policy and training to settle an ACLU lawsuit filed in the wake of an indiscriminate mass arrest that shut down a protest march during the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver.

The lawsuit charged that Denver falsely arrested the ACLU’s clients without probable cause and groundlessly prosecuted them for crimes they did not commit, in violation of the First and Fourth Amendments.

The settlement agreement follows a ruling by federal district court Judge Richard Matsch, holding that the ACLU’s false arrest claims could proceed to trial.

“This case identified serious flaws in Denver’s training and policies on crowd control and policing demonstrations,” said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “The settlement, and the resulting improvements to Denver’s crowd-control manual, underscores an important lesson for Denver police: They must have individualized facts showing that each separate person they arrest was violating the law. Police violate the Constitution when they simply arrest everyone who happens to be in the area.”

The ACLU’s lawsuit noted that Denver police often allow street marches to proceed without the required permit, a practice that provides breathing room for First Amendment expression while avoiding unnecessary confrontations between protesters and police.

“In this case, however, police cracked down aggressively with a massive deployment of riot-equipped police,” said John Culver, of Culver & Benezra, LLC, who litigated the case and negotiated the settlement as an ACLU Cooperating Attorney. “Police eventually arrested nearly 100 persons, without distinguishing between those who were marching in the street without a permit and others, like our clients, who merely watched from the sidewalks, where they had a legal right to be.”

The march started from Civic Center Park in the early evening of August 25, 2008, the second day of the convention. Participants marched on Fifteenth Street and the adjoining sidewalks but were quickly stopped by a solid line of police at Court Street. A second line of police -- clad in full body riot armor and carrying an array of less-lethal weapons -- quickly closed in from behind, confining hundreds of persons in a one-block stretch of Fifteenth Street. After detaining the crowd for hours, Denver arbitrarily allowed half the group to leave and then began handcuffing the others.

The lawsuit charged that Denver carried out a groundless mass arrest of an entire group, knowing that the roundup included numerous innocent persons such as the ACLU’s clients. Indeed, of the 54 persons who did not accept an immediate plea bargain, at least 38, including the ACLU’s eight clients, were cleared after jury trials or after prosecutors finally dismissed the bogus charges.

The ACLU’s clients, who included a legal observer for the People’s Law Project (PLP), a journalist, as well as students documenting the march, were charged with failing to obey a police order to disperse. After Denver finally acknowledged that no such order had ever been issued, Denver City attorneys nevertheless persisted in prosecuting the Plaintiffs for supposedly “obstructing” a public right of way by marching in the street without a permit. With legal representation from the PLP, all the criminal cases were resolved in the Plaintiffs’ favor.

The ACLU’s lawsuit also alleged that Denver violated Colorado statute when it refused to allow attorneys to meet with any of the arrestees at the vacant warehouse Denver had converted into a special detention facility for DNC-related arrests. The court certified that state-law claim as a class action on behalf of all persons caught up in the mass arrest, but the court later ruled that, as written, the Colorado statute did not require Denver to accommodate attorney visits when arrestees are charged only with violating municipal ordinances. Silverstein said the ACLU will ask the Colorado legislature to clarify the statute with an amendment that will make it crystal clear that any detainee -- regardless of the charge -- has a right to meet with an attorney in a confidential setting.

The settlement agreement will not be final until it is approved by the federal district court and the Denver City Council.

“This settlement is about much more than money,” said ACLU client Kim Sidwell, one of those arrested unlawfully. “We wanted Denver held accountable for violating the Constitution, which protects everyone from indiscriminate arrests and false charges. I hope that this settlement and the changes to Denver’s crowd control manual will ensure that nothing like this will happen again at future demonstrations.”

In addition to Silverstein and Culver, the ACLU legal team included ACLU Cooperating Attorneys Seth Benezra and Lonn Heyman, ACLU Staff Attorney Rebecca T. Wallace, and former ACLU Staff Attorney Taylor Pendergrass.

More on this case