By Brian D. Crecente and Sarah Langbein, The Rocky Mountain News
Denver District Attorney Bill Ritter tossed a police shooting investigation to a grand jury Thursday for the first time in his 12-year tenure.
Ritter will present the case against officer Ranjan Ford Jr., 34, in the July 12 shooting death of 63-year-old Frank Lobato to the grand jury on Wednesday.
Lobato’s death was the latest in a series of controversial police shootings that triggered sweeping reforms in the police use-of-force policy and the department’s civilian oversight.
Department critics reserved judgment on Thursday’s announcement.
“I think it’s too soon to call it a positive or negative,” said the Rev. Reginald Holmes, president of the Greater Metro Denver Ministerial Alliance, which has challenged the department on recent police shootings.
Ritter has never charged an officer involved in a shooting with a crime.
“I want 12 citizens of Denver to be involved in evaluating the facts of the case,” Ritter said. “I want them to make an assessment of the case and determine whether it is appropriate to return an indictment or not return an indictment.”
Ritter wouldn’t discuss the details of the shooting nor would he say what led him to seek another opinion.
“The factual situation is different from other cases that have come to me that involved police-involved shootings,” he said.
Only two other such cases have been forwarded to the grand jury in the past 27 years. Both cases resulted in criminal charges against the officers. Both officers were later found not guilty.
The decision drew muted reaction among officials.
“We are confident that Bill Ritter’s determination was based on careful analysis of the facts and the law, and we respect his decision to send this case to the grand jury,” Mayor John Hickenlooper wrote in a prepared statement.
Police Chief Gerry Whitman declined to comment on the case.
Mike Mosco, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, called the decision another step in the process.
But the decision came as no comfort to Lobato’s family members in California, who heard the news after one of them was contacted by Denver attorney Kenneth Padilla moments after Ritter’s announcement. Padilla shared in their disappointment, saying Ritter was not living up to his responsibility as district attorney by handing off the case to a grand jury.
“This is a clear case where criminal charges should be brought,” Padilla said. “I did not hear any good reason to use a grand jury. . . . There is no reason why the district attorney should not step to the plate.”
Padilla’s disdain for the decision grew in his voice. He trembled as he expressed doubt in the sitting jury.
“They’re not investigators,” he said. “All you need to know is they work for the district attorney.”
Leroy Lemos, a Lobato family spokesman and community activist, said Ritter’s move allows him to leave office without ever charging an officer involved in a shooting.
“We’re in the same place as we were yesterday,” Lemos said. “The family wants to know what it takes to get justice in Denver.”
Denver has two standing grand juries that meet every other week.
A grand jury, which has the option of declining to hear a case, operates in secret and has subpoena power. It can recommend to indict or not indict, issue a report or do nothing.
At least nine of the 12 jurors need to agree to indict Ford. Ritter then has the option of not prosecuting Ford if he chooses to ignore an indictment.
If the grand jury accepts the Ford case, it would be the first time in 12 years that a police shooting went to a grand jury. The last occurred in 1992 when officer Michael Blake was charged with second-degree murder but found not guilty at trial.
Ford has been on paid leave since the shooting.
Lobato was watching television in bed when he was shot to death. Ford apparently mistook a soda can in Lobato’s hand for a gun.
Juries acquitted two indicted officers
Grand juries have indicted two Denver police officers in the last 27 years, the only officers prosecuted for shootings during that period:
Patrolman David Neil, indicted Dec. 8, 1977, in the shooting death of an unarmed suspect, Arthur Espinosa, 48, in Curtis Park on May 15, 1977. Neil was acquitted in a jury trial. Espinosa’s adult children sued Neil and won a $930,000 judgment, later reduced to $75,000.