By Elise Schmelzer
The Denver Post
LOVELAND, Colo. — Two former Loveland police officers will face criminal charges for violently arresting a 73-year-old woman with dementia and lying about or failing to report the woman’s injuries, which included a broken arm and a dislocated shoulder.
Prosecutors with the Eighth Judicial District Attorney’s Office on Wednesday filed charges against Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali, the officers who violently arrested Karen Garner in June after receiving a report that she tried to walk out of a Walmart with $13 of merchandise.
Hopp — the first officer to arrive on scene — faces charges of second-degree assault, attempt to influence a public servant and official misconduct, court records show. The assault and attempt to influence a public servant are felony charges and the official misconduct charge is a misdemeanor.
Prosecutors charged Jalali with three misdemeanors: failing to report excessive use of force, failure to intervene in an excessive use of force and official misconduct.
“While peace officers are permitted to use reasonable force to effect an arrest, the investigation in this case showed that Austin Hopp used excessive force in the arrest of Ms. Garner that resulted in serious bodily injury to Ms. Garner,” District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin said at a news conference Wednesday. “Further, the investigation showed that Daria Jalali, having witnessed that excessive force, failed to live up to her duties under the law and as a sworn peace officer to either intervene or report that conduct.”
Garner’s family felt relief that Hopp and Jalali are being prosecuted, but still want to see harsher charges for the two former officers as well as charges filed against other officers involved in the arrest, attorney Sarah Schielke said at a news conference.
Garner never returned to normal after the arrest and has become largely non-communicative, her family says.
“This is not an excessive force case — it’s torture in broad daylight, by multiple officers, including supervisors,” Schielke said.
The investigation
Detectives with the Fort Collins Police Department led the investigation and reviewed videos, phone calls and hundreds of pages of reports, and interviewed more than 20 people, Fort Collins police Chief Jeff Swoboda said. The detectives compiled a 600-page report on the incident, which will not yet be made public because there is now an open criminal case.
Jalali, Hopp and Community Service Officer Tyler Blackett resigned from the department April 30, two weeks after Garner’s family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit over the arrest.
McLaughlin said that the charges of attempting to influence a public servant against Hopp were related to “substantial omissions” and inaccuracies in his reports about the incident.
In his use-of-force report filed after the arrest, Hopp said Garner was asked “several times if she wanted medical attention and she either would not answer or start(ed) talking about something else,” Hopp’s arrest affidavit states.
But after reviewing footage from the jail cell, investigators found Garner repeated more than 20 times that her shoulder hurt, according to the arrest affidavit. Investigators also allege that Hopp knew about the shoulder injury given that he described the “pop” sound as he dislocated Garner’s shoulder while showing the others video of the arrest.
Hopp, Jalali and Blackett all failed to mention a shoulder injury in their original reports, even though investigators determined that Hopp heard about the potential injury on a phone before he submitted his use-of-force statement, the affidavit states.
“Neither Hopp, Jalali or Blackett made any attempt to provide Garner medical care after learning of the ‘pop’ as described by Hopp to them and after Garner repeated approximately 22 times in their respective presence that her shoulder hurt,” the affidavit states.
Loveland police Chief Robert Ticer said at a news conference Wednesday that he fully supported the charges against Hopp and Jalali.
The city’s human resources department and an outside group will conduct an internal investigation into the incident and decide whether more officers should be disciplined. Another investigation will look at the department’s policies and procedures as a whole and recommend changes. The outside group or groups that will help the city in those investigations have not yet been finalized, Ticer said.
Most of the department’s officers have completed Alzheimer’s awareness training since the lawsuit was filed and the department also will do more de-escalation training, the chief said. The city attorney will review all use-of-force cases in the future, he said.
Arrest warrants were issued Wednesday for Hopp and Jalali, and McLaughlin said he believed the two former officers planned to turn themselves in.
Both Hopp and Jalali worked in previous law enforcement jobs before joining the Loveland Police Department.
Hopp worked for the Nacogdoches Police Department in Texas and at the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, according to records obtained by The Denver Post through a records request. Jalali previously worked for the Lafayette Police Department and volunteered with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office mounted posse.
Who knew?
Beyond more criminal charges, Garner’s family wants to know exactly who knew about the brutality of the arrest prior to the federal lawsuit being filed and why those people did not act.
A prosecutor in the Eighth Judicial District Attorney’s Office reviewed the body camera footage of the arrest months prior to the lawsuit as part of the criminal case filed against Garner, McLaughlin said Wednesday in response to a reporter’s question. The case was later dismissed.
That prosecutor remains with the office, but McLaughlin, who was sworn in as DA in January, said he made it clear that employees should report future excessive force cases.
Ticer said Wednesday that he did not become aware of the arrest until the day Schielke filed the lawsuit. He also said there was no internal affairs investigation immediately after the arrest.
But Hopp’s affidavit shows that Hopp did file a report. It’s unclear who reviewed that report and whether those who reviewed the report looked at the body camera footage.
At least one supervising officer, Sgt. Phil Metzler, knew about the forceful arrest because he responded to the scene. He also spoke to a man who stopped his car near the scene and complained about the amount of force being used on Garner.
Metzler remains at the department on paid administrative leave and prosecutors did not charge him criminally. Metzler was placed on leave on April 27 and makes $2,362 a week, Loveland salary records show. There is no estimated time for when Metzler will return from administrative leave, Ticer said.
Garner’s family wants him to be fired and criminally charged and for the police chief to resign, Schielke said.
“It is a crime to help other people commit crimes,” she said. “That is the law in Colorado. Why are only two officers charged?”
The family on Mother’s Day visited Garner at the memory care facility where she now lives, said Shannon Steward, Garner’s daughter-in-law. She is no longer the happy woman collecting flowers that can be seen in the first seconds of Hopp’s body camera footage and is now fearful of everyone — even her family.
“She hasn’t smiled since then,” Steward said.
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