THE COMING DARKNESS:
Exposing the Nefarious Deeds of the Police,
Or, Enticing Colonel Proctor’s Men…

Almost lost as isolated items of information amongst the vaster reportage of wars and pogroms, religious persecutions and cult suicides, school shootings and tragic automobile accidents, the cynical lies of politicians seeking election and news of their scandalous conduct while in office, are the articles we see occasionally about cops breaking the laws they are supposed to enforce. Such official misconduct is a much larger problem than it would appear to be at first glance.

During January, February and March of this year, I set out to monitor Denver’s two mainstream daily newspapers, the Denver Post and the Denver Rocky Mountain News, to cull any articles about local and regional police misconduct.  I ignored the material about places like New York and Los Angeles.  After only 90 days, I had amassed a thick file of clippings that chronicled crimes ranging from trespass to murder, all committed by cops.  By far the most popular offense committed by “peace” officers was the use of excessive force in making arrests. This was followed closely by sexual harassment and the firing of subordinates who complained.  A significant proportion of the stories dealt with officers who violated anti-drug laws.  In addition, cops in Colorado were involved in racketeering, the questionable or illegal use of public property, questionable shootings and killings of suspects, outright negligence, pressuring subordinates to commit perjury, official coverups, illegal searches, appallingly lenient treatment of officers caught breaking the law, domestic violence, violations of civil rights, committing racial slurs, firearms violations, refusal to obey a court order, and official misuse of power.

Patterns emerged.  In March, a major scandal came to light in the Denver suburb of Glendale when the attorney for a man fighting a DUI charge obtained a police video of the arrest.  It turned out that his client had been manhandled and beaten.  When the news fully broke, an astonishing number of citizens suddenly came forward with similar stories of brutal treatment, leading me to wonder: how many times do the cops get away with this kind of behavior, simply because their victims are afraid to come forward?

In the unfolding scandal of the shooting and killing of Ismail Mena last September, a case where the no-knock SWAT team entered the wrong house on a warrant obtained by an officer who had committed perjury in obtaining it, we find that hours before this raid, the same team had entered another house a short distance away, also on a falsely sworn warrant.  The 71 year old female victim of this raid had suffered six previous illegal raids in which nothing illegal was ever found in her home.  How often does this occur in poorer neighborhoods, and who will listen, unless, as happened last September, someone actually gets killed in the commission of one of these storm troop-style break-ins?

There is no doubt that what you will read in the pages that follow represents only a smattering of what actually goes on.  The fact is that citizens are about as likely to be beaten or raped or harassed by cops as they are by the criminals cops are supposed to protect them from.  Charged to enforce ridiculous and unnecessary drug laws, the police consciously and hypocritically recruit officers from drug-using populations.  Psychologists have long known that the profiles of violent cops are indistinguishable from those of violent criminals in general - both groups tend to  come from homes with abusive parents; both groups have extremely low I.Q.s , and both groups have long and well-established careers of violence and sadism stretching back to childhood.

What flabbergasts me is the willingness of “good” citizens to idolize and champion this fraternity of thugs, the police, in spite of their notoriously brutal and inconsiderate behavior, rationalizing every instance of police misconduct with a flippant dismissal: “Oh, well, there are always a few bad apples, and it’s unfair to judge all cops on the basis of …”  You know the rest.  Unfortunately, practically the whole barrel of apples is stinking, putrid and rotten, as I am about to demonstrate.  What most alarms me, I think, is that otherwise well-meaning people, perhaps genuinely concerned with the prevalence of violence in our culture, will so unthinkingly seek a gun-controlled, disarmed society in which the only two groups authorized to own and carry firearms would be the military and the police.  Keep that in mind as you read what follows, and ask yourself, “If these cops I am reading about controlled all the guns, what chance would any of us have to resist?”  And more importantly, given what you are about to discover about these fine gentlemen, the “law enforcement officers,” could we even say with certainty that crime would be eliminated if they were given free reign?  Ask the eighty-some-year old owner of a Jewish delicatessen in Salt Lake City, the old man with the numbers burned into his wrist, at what price did Germany achieve safe streets?  And ask yourself, “Which is really worse - the random acts of violence committed by isolated individuals, or the officially sanctioned, draconian institutional violence invariably committed by armed bodies of uniformed sadists?

Take a thousand or so men with subnormal I.Q.s, an utterly ignorant perspective on just about everything, and a fondness for violence.  Equip them with fine weaponry.  Give them important-looking uniforms to strut around in. Decorate them with shiny badges.  Empower them to make life and death decisions on a routine basis, especially with regard to persons who are eminently their superiors in morality and intelligence.  Pay them for it.  This is what you get.  It is there fo anyone to read in the mainstream, otherwise government-lauding press.

A glimpse at the problem’s true dimensions.  Denver, Colorado.  January, February and March, 2000.

JANUARY

Littleton cop Jeffrey Daniel Osman is arrested by postal inspectors for possession of 90 1-milligram tablets of Rohypnol, 200 Valiums, five tablets of a depressant known as Temazepam and an ounce of marijuana.  According to the Denver Post, abusers of Rohypnol “slip crushed tablets of the sedative into unsuspecting people’s drinks and later sexually assault them.”  Osman claims he ordered the pills to treat his “insomnia” and is suspended with pay from the Littleton Police Department.  While there ought not to be anything inherently wrong at all with possessing drugs, this story just goes to show that cops have no more respect for anti-drug laws than anyone else, and that when they are caught, they are treated more leniently than the rest of us would be.  Other “suspects” in drug cases are not so lucky as Jeffrey Daniel Osman.  (Nor does one even have to be a legitimate suspect to suffer horribly .  Last September, Ismail Mena was shot and killed by Denver cops in a SWAT-style ‘drug raid’ on the wrong house.  Mena, who wasn’t even caught with any illegal drugs, didn’t get “paid administrative leave.”  He got a coffin)

Colorado State Patrol trooper Wesley Desmond Crider, who is 6 feet 2 inches tall and weighs 185 pounds, brings his 9 week old son Matthew to Yampa Valley Medical Center claiming that the boy fell 14 inches from a futon onto a carpeted floor.  Emergency room doctor David Wilkinson says that Matthew’s injuries were too severe to be caused by a short fall and were more consistent with violent shaking or shaking combined with blunt force trauma.  Matthew is removed from life support due to the gravity of his injuries.  Crider is jailed but put on “administrative leave.”  You or I would’ve been fired.

Aurora policewoman Barbara Wimmer wins a $1 million federal lawsuit against the Aurora police department, Chief Verne Saint Vincent, and Deputy Chief Michael Stiers.  She had been forced to work 20 feet away from another officer who had stalked, burglarized, choked and raped her.  Barbara had dated the cop and had broken off the relationship.  The officer, R.J. Wilson, received a “written reprimand” and Barbara was assigned to continue working with him in the same office.  When she tried numerous times to get a transfer, Saint Vincent and Stiers invariably refused the requests, telling her to “get over it and stop running.”

Englewood cop Barry Cape is exonerated for killing 18 year old Robert Eugene Sandoval in 1999.  It seemed that Sandoval was “suicidal.”  Cape “inadvertently” loaded his shotgun with a more powerful round than the non-lethal rubber bullets issued to him for such situations.   Police policy is to fire rubber bullets “below the waist,” but Cape fired his lethal round right into Sandoval’s heart.  Nice, shot, Barry.  That’ll teach Sandoval not to be suicidal.  Cape was placed on “administrative leave” for several days.  Arapahoe County D.A. James Peters, who depends on the testimony of officers like Cape and his buddies to win his cases so he can be a big shot and move on to higher political offices, fully exonerates Cape.

Denver Police “investigate” a woman’s claim that a sheriff’s sergeant tossed her handcuffed from a van and that deputies tried to cover it up.  Anita Valverde, 42, was arrested on December 11th.  She alleges that Sgt. Franklin Gale pushed her out of the sheriff’s van and that she landed on the pavement head-first, since her hands were cuffed.  Accusations of any “unusual use of force” are normally investigated within the sheriff’s department, but in this particular case, the Denver Police Department was called on for further investigation because two deputies who started out claiming that Valverde “tripped and fell from the van” later changed their stories, admitting that Gale actually pushed her.  We only wonder how many cases of prisoners pushed head-first from vans do not make the papers because deputies stick to their original lies.

Mark Taylor, a Columbine High School student shot seven times in the chest, arms and leg by killers Harris and Klebold last April 20th, addresses 300 people at his church.  While not a single one of the 600 “officers” who were at Columbine that day suffered so much as a scratch; and while it took so called “SWAT teams” three and a half hours to reach a teacher who was bleeding to death, hours after the shooters were already dead; and while another student, Patrick Ireland, had to crawl, bleeding and half paralyzed from a head shot out the second story library window in order to save his own life, two and a half hours after the killers had killed themselves; we now get a rare glimpse of how the wounded were treated once the high and mighty cops deigned to approach them.  Mark Taylor was thrown into the back of a police vehicle on top of about a dozen bodies and left for dead.  Aren’t we lucky that these brave and stalwart enforcers of the law are there to protect us when we most need them?

On January 28, the Rocky Mountain News reports that a female Denver police officer has been pressured by her superiors to falsify records in connection with the SWAT team murder of Ismail Mena four months earlier.  Specifically, she was pressured to make it appear as though there had been earlier reports of trouble at the Mena home when in reality there had been none.  On September 29, 1999, Denver SWAT officers stormed the Mena home and shot Mr. Mena dead.  Only after neighbors complained did it become apparent that they had stormed the wrong house.  We get yet another glimpse of the cynical way in which these marauding thugs, the police, attempt to whitewash their “mistakes”with lies.  Ironically, on the same page where we read about the high-level attempt to cover up the affair with lies, there are two other headlines: “President proposes gun licenses,” and “Tom Mauser stands again for gun control” Apparently, both the President and Mr. Mauser, father of a slain Columbine student, would prefer to live in a world where the only people who carry guns are uniformed criminals.  But Ismail Mena is just as dead as Tom Mauser’s son, and while Klebold and Harris were “psychopathic criminals,” the cops who killed Mena are still perceived as “dedicated officers of the law.”

On January 29th, Denver Police Chief Tom Sanchez tells the Denver Post that the allegations of a cover-up “strike at the very integrity of our institution.”  He assures the public that he has “made it clear to the Internal Affairs Bureau commander that this investigation is the police department’s highest priority.”

FEBRUARY

On February 4th, Denver Police Chief Tom Sanchez tells the Denver Post that an “internal investigation” found “no criminal wrongdoing” in looking into the allegations of the female officer who claimed that she was pressured to falsify records pertaining to the Ismail Mena shooting.  Surprise, surprise.

At the same time, Denver cop Joseph Bini becomes the likely scapegoat for the Mena fiasco when special investigator Dave Thomas, DA of adjacent Jefferson County, determines that he lied to a judge in obtaining the warrant on Mena’ residence.   Sure, we know.  The cops who fired the bullets that killed Mena were “just following orders.”

Denver attorney Robert Maes is quoted as telling the Post that Thomas’ report will confirm that “the city has policies that are deliberately indifferent to the value of human life.”

On February 6, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reports that after raiding the wrong house and killing Ismail Mena, cops returned next day to raid the house next door, the “correct” house.  Their actions have now resulted in a single misdemeanor conviction.  Was it worth it?

Boulder Police illegally seized evidence in a search of Michael J. Gall’s apartment, District Judge Daniel Hale rules.  The warrant failed adequately to specify the residence to be searched.

Former State trooper Wes Crider, mentioned above as having shaken his 2 month old son to death in January, is released from jail on $20,000 bail.  Meaning he had to cough up about two thousand bucks.  A reasonable bail figure for a child-killer, if you’re an ex-cop.

State authorities investigate allegations that a law officer used excessive force on a suspect arrested in a high speed chase on February 5th.  No other details are available.  But the previous week, a Clear Creek County deputy sheriff was charged with reckless endangerment, reckless driving and official misconduct in a high speed chase last December.  The incident involved the repeated ramming of the pursued vehicle on a public highway.

Commerce City police defend a high speed chase on February 9th which put a “suspect” on the critically injured list at Denver Health Medical Center.  (He was “suspected” of the heinous offense of parole violation).  His 10 year old female passenger was also injured and sent to Children’s Hospital “We had an obligation to take him into custody,” copwoman Elaine Rowe huffs.  What the hell?  It wasn’t her little girl who ended up in the hospital.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News runs a story about a 1992 shooting in which two off-duty Denver cops killed a Mexican immigrant.  According to the police report, Miguel Angel Ochoa, 24, suffered a wound to his chest.  However, the coroner’s report found that the officers had actually shot Ochoa in the back.  The killing was ruled by the district attorney as a “justifiable shooting.”  Somehow, this does not become news until now.

And guess what?  Another “wrong address” on a no-knock raid, this time in Aurora, a Denver suburb.  A raid on an East Colfax Avenue pawn shop on January 8th left Stuart Coapland with a broken shoulder and multiple cuts.  The faulty warrant for the raid contained the wrong address and name of the store.  The Aurora police said that they had “never before” received a complaint about a no-knock raid.

A Colorado prison inmate, Moses Nieto, will be able to sue prison workers, according to the Colorado Supreme Court.  In October, 1991, Nieto developed a serious sinus infection which spread to his right eye, the base of his brain, and the right frontal lobe of his brain.  Despite several consecutive visits to the prison clinic, Nieto was repeatedly brushed off by guards and nurses, who would only treat him for a cold.  On October 9, Nieto was found unconscious in his cell.  He had suffered a paralytic stroke as a result of the infection he had sought treatment for.

Another ex-cop sues her former employers, this time in Lochbuie.  Rhonda Eidson was fired in March 1999 after becoming pregnant.  According to Eidson, police chief Charles Reid told her to “take care of it” and expressed amazement that she was “stupid enough to get herself knocked up.”  Reportedly, Lochbuie mayor Glenneda Evans stated  during a city council meeting that she also couldn’t believe “the stupid bitch got herself knocked up.”           Details are released to the press on the “internal investigation” of the Denver Police Department of a beating administered to a prisoner, Gil Webb, in 1997.  Officer Nick Grove was found to have kicked Webb in the face.  Another officer was found not to have participated in the actual beating, but was disciplined for bragging that he did.  Officer Phil Stanford told other officers that he had removed Webb’s handcuffs so that it would appear he was resisting arrest.  He then claimed to have kicked Webb in the head and back of the neck, a boast that was not substantiated by videotapes of the incident.   Denver Police Protective Association vice president Nayo Arabalo justifies the slap-on-the-wrist five day loss of pay penalty imposed on Grove and Stanford.  In nonsensical Orwellian phraseology, apologist Arabalo says, “Internal affairs conducted an independent (?!) investigation” which found that “procedural errors” occurred, but that there was no coverup, which “proves” that the internal affairs process “works.”  Yes, but to whose benefit?  Had I kicked officer Grove in the face, could I have expected to get off with five days loss of pay for my “procedural error?”

A Rocky Mountain News article dated February 17 discloses that the Denver Police Department, charged with enforcing the law, loses a $1.44 million lawsuit brought by three former officers who, after being injured “in the line of duty,” were “forced to retire” in direct violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Also on February 17, the Denver Post informs us that Attorneys for Aguedo Garcia-Martinez will sue the Denver Police Department.  Last August 24, while a news helicopter from KMGH Channel 7 hovered overhead broadcasting the scene live to the public, Garcia was clearly and unmistakably pistol-whipped in the head after exiting a car that had been stopped in a chase.  He was a passenger.  Arapahoe County Jim Peters subsequently ruled that “no excessive force was used,” and that “police followed accepted police methods of subduing culprits.”  I guess he’s right, in view of the fact that the only people to raise a stink so far are Garcia-Martinez’ lawyers.

In the same issue of the Denver Rocky Mountain News, we read that on the day Ismail Mena was killed by a SWAT team entering the wrong house, another home was also raided by the same goon squad, and that this home, too, was found not to contain any “drugs.”  According to 71 year old Minnie Clarke, “They’ve been here six times.  They said somebody snitched, but they ain’t never found no drugs.”  She added that the police swarmed into her house on September 29th, a couple of hours before Ismail Mena was killed 14 blocks away, yelled at her to “get down,” tossed her clothing in a pile and poured a bucket of paint over it.  Asked why police kept targeting her house she said, “Don’t ask me.,”

In an effort to improve their smelly image, the Denver Police hold an “open house” at their training academy on February 12th.  They distribute popcorn and punch and give visitors high speed rides through a driving range.  Supposedly, this is to convince already savvy inner city kids that “the policeman is your friend.”  Yeah, sure.

FBI Special Agent Elaine Lipka, convicted last year in Clear Creek County of third degree assault and harassment in a domestic violence beating of her own husband, is sentenced to a year’s probation and 36 weeks of domestic violence classes.  This poses a problem for Lipka, as federal gun control laws prohibit any person convicted of domestic violence from carrying a gun.  However, carrying a gun is a requirement for federal agents.  Not to worry.  An FBI “spokesman” says that Lipka would be placed on “limited duty status.”  Meaning she can keep her job, law or no law.

The Denver Post features a long article on February 20th showing that when it comes to no-knock “drug raids,” the preponderance of them are targeted at racial minorities in Denver.  Also, court records for 1999 show that the majority of such raids are the result of perfectly “legal” frame-ups in which a known user “cooperates” with the police to stage a “controlled buy” of narcotics.  Most involve transactions of only $20 to $40.  Rev. Gill Ford of the NAACP wonders, “Would a $20 rock of coke suffice to use a no-knock in Cherry Creek?” ( Cherry Creek is one of Denver’s wealthiest, predominately white neighborhoods.)

On Monday, February 21, protesters from the Justice for (Ismail) Mena Committee try to stage a peaceful demonstration on 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver.  Despite the supposed constitutional guarantee of the people’s right peaceably to assemble to air just grievances, cops break up the demonstration.  “If there’s a complaint,” Detective Mary Thomas pontificates, “the First Amendment doesn’t apply.”    ACLU lawyer Mark Silverstein remarked, “I hadn’t been aware that the First Amendment had been suspended in Denver.”  It has been now.

Not to be outdone in dreaming up things to do, the state troopers in Silver Plume, a small mining town near the Eisenhower tunnel on I-70, try to keep hot dog skiers from jumping over the highway on Loveland Pass.  They admit, though, that “as long as stupidity is not a crime,” they won’t charge any of the college students involved.  Stupidity is not a crime?  Everything else is. We learn something interesting again on February 26th about the Ismail Mena case.  Supposedly, Mena confronted SWAT officers with a handgun when they raided the wrong house, and this was their excuse for gunning him down.  Well, guess what.  Ballistic reports could not match either of the .22 slugs which were supposedly fired by Mena’s weapon.  Moreover, the .22 Burgo itself was found to be missing an important piece that keeps the cylinder from falling out.  Naw, the cops wouldn’t plant a gun, would they?

Two days later, on February 28, the Denver Post publishes a letter to the Editor from Holly Colton.  She says, “When Mena fired back at the police, I’m sure they thought they had the right house.  After all, who would shoot back at them except some criminal who has something to hide?”

Despite the frenzied anti-drug crusades of religious nut cases and the far right, and in the wake of the zealous murders of innocent occupants of houses illegally stormed by jack-booted SWAT teams looking for ‘illegal drugs,’ the FBI admits on February 28th that the “zero tolerance policies” of local police may make it difficult for law enforcement departments to find acceptable recruits.  Jane Quimby of the Denver FBI office tells the Denver Rocky Mountain News that of the 1200 police applicants screened by the FBI here each year, only 30 to 40 per cent have never used drugs.  She admits that even the FBI itself has had to “adjust”its standards for applicants.  FBI recruits who have used hard drugs like cocaine five or fewer times in the past ten years are still eligible for hire, and a prospective agent can smoke marijuana up to 15 times and still become a G-man.  In an utterly appalling desecration of the English tongue, Denver policewoman Virginia Lopez remarks, “I don’t want anyone looking at our officers or our department and saying, ‘Who are they to uphold the law if they are a person who has broken the law in one way or another.’” Too late, Virginia.  Far, far too late to worry about that.

The Denver Post reports on Sunday, February 27, that judges routinely rubber stamp no-knock search warrants.  “Judges are generally rubber stamps for the police in signing warrants,” criminal defense attorney David Lane tells the Post.  “I’ve seen some of the most defective warrants imaginable get approved.  This is certainly a Fourth Amendment violation since it’s an unreasonable search as there are no facts to support the no-knock.”  Denver’s former presiding judge, George Manerbino, theorized that “heavy workloads” could cause judges to sign warrants inappropriately.  Would that excuse wash if you or I were accused of breaking a Federal law?  Needless to say, no arrests have been made in this case of Fourth Amendment rights violations.

MARCH

Denver Bronco Reggie Rivers writes a guest opinion for the Denver Post expressing his belief that confidence in Denver cops is gone.  “Unfortunately,” Rivers says, “whenever a problem develops within the police department, it gets investigated outside of public view; the investigators often reach conclusions without telling us.  Too often the findings they release exonerate the officers involved, and we rarely get any assurances of reprimands …”  And here I thought football players were all a bunch of inarticulate cretins.

Meanwhile, a videotape of a DUI arrest in Glendale surfaces.  In it, a local lawyer, John Conrad Schaeffer, is taken from his car, handcuffed, and laid across a police cruiser.  An officer in another police cruiser pulls up, exits the car and knees Schaeffer twice and then drops him to the ground.  The arresting cops initially asked that Schaeffer be charged with attempted first degree assault on a peace officer.  They settled for obstructing a peace officer, resisting arrest, DUI, eluding a police officer, and reckless driving.  Sgt. Bob Malafronte, whose actions were recorded on videotape, is “redeployed to a nonenforcement capacity.”  Don’t you just love cop talk?

Habeas corpus and due process now only apply to those whose “papers are in order.”  Federal appeals court judges in Denver rule that the INS can “detain indefinitely” (read forever) immigrant “criminals” whose countries won’t take them back. Their tough luck for getting convicted in such enlightened, progressive countries as Chile, Iraq or the People’s Republic of China. I guess their honors forgot, too,  that Virginia was originally a British penal colony.  What’s that inscription on the Statue of Liberty?”  Oh well.

(As an aside here, I would like to quote remarks made by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia at the Denver University School of law at about the same time the article on INS detentions appeared.  According to the Denver Post, Scalia said that conservatives and liberals alike are willing to “twist and bend” the U.S. Constitution to fit their own beliefs.  Regarding such large social issues as homosexuality, abortion, and the right to die, he asked, “Why do you want lawyers to decide this?  Do they have special capacity?”  And he went on to add, “Joe Six-Pack knows deep down in his heart that I know no more about the right to die than he does.”  But he might as well have been talking about the rights of immigrants who, for all we know, were falsely convicted on trumped up charges in their home countries)

On March 2, the Denver Post reports that El Paso county undersheriff deputy Ivan Middlemiss has alleged that he was fired from his post for accusing sheriff John Anderson of wrongdoing.  According to Middlemiss, Anderson pressured on- and off-duty employees to work on behalf of his 1998 campaign.   Anderson said he “encouraged” workers to get involved but did not force them.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News reports that three women who are employed at the Colorado Judicial Department are suing the agency, alleging sexual harassment by probation officer Vernon Fogg.  One woman says that Fogg repeatedly propositioned her and finally forced her to have sex with him at a 1997 convention of probation officers at Winter Park.  The woman was subsequently forced to have sex with Fogg on other occasions, and when she finally did complain, she was demoted and transferred to a lower ranking job.  Another woman claims Fogg retaliated against her for coming to the defense of the victim.  Still another woman complains that she was repeatedly harassed until she finally had to resign.  All three women said that when they complained to the department, they were told by human resources director Jim Benway that their complaints about Fogg were “hysterical.”

Gaku Homma, owner of a Japanese restaurant in Denver, comes forward to say that he, too, was roughed up by Glendale cop Bob Malafronte.  According to Homma, Malafronte hauled him from his car on January 1 and dropped him on his face.  Another cop pelted Homma with racial slurs, saying, “I never forgot you attacked Pearl Harbor, Jap.”  (As it turns out, Homma, who is only 49 years old, could not possibly have been involved in the attack on Pearl Harbor, which attack, anyway, apparently lies outside the jurisdiction of the Glendale Police Department.)

Two items from the March 4 Denver Post: first, an animal control officer with the Washington county sheriff’s office is jailed on suspicion of drug trafficking and acceptance of a bribe.  A former treasurer of the Ouray County Sheriff’s Posse is arrested for stealing $22,000 from the group’s annual fund-raising rodeos.

And hey, guess what?  Still two more people come forward to allege that the Glendale police had used excessive force on them.  One claimed that police separated his shoulder when they handcuffed him last September.  The officer?  Why none other than Bob Malafronte, who by now must be getting sick of seeing his name in the papers.  Another victim whose name is withheld by his attorney, says he was roughed up by the Glendale police in November.  Earlier in the week, Channel 9 news reporter Paula Woodward discloses that Barbara Van Der Errand claims she was assaulted at work by Glendale officer Joe Silla in August, 1998.

The Denver Post reports that officer Malafronte was arrested in 1985 for driving under the influence of drugs.

The Denver Rocky Mountain News runs an article on March 5 revealing that federal prosecutor Dave Connor, recently hired to work on the government’s Project Exile gun law crackdown program, carried a loaded .45 caliber pistol to the office inside a briefcase for a year and a half, until it accidently discharged.  Connor had no permit for the gun.  It is illegal in Denver to carry a loaded weapon, and Colorado law prohibits carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.  U.S. Attorney Tom Stickland tells the News that what Connor did would not have come under Project Exile’s aim.  Of course not.  Project Exile is only meant to target people who don’t work for Mr. Strickland.

On March 7th, the Denver Post reports that the LA Police Department, reeling from its own scandals involving perjury and planting of evidence by officers, is seeking to fill 555 positions.  Not surprisingly, Denver is among the 44 cities recruiters plan to visit.  Maybe they need some experienced  SWAT officers who know how to follow orders and shoot to kill before asking any questions.   Sounding more like a travel agent, LAPD spokesman Douglas Larkin tells the Post that they want to offer prospective officers something that “you guys can’t.”  And what would that be?  “Sunny beaches, water sports and nearby popular travel destinations like Tijuana, Mexico.”

Tijuana?

Also on the 7th, Jennifer Arquello alleges that she, too, was beaten up by Glendale police officer Bob Malafronte during a 1999 traffic stop.  Claims against the city of Glendale now total $6.5 million.

Another letter to the editor, this time from Nancy Schwan, who whines that she can’t join the Denver police department since they instituted their “zero tolerance” policy on drug use.  “I made some mistakes in my past by using drugs.  But that is in the past; why can’t it stay there,” this incredibly arrogant  fruitcake moans.  I’m sure ninety nine out of a hundred inmates of the state pen, imprisoned for “making some mistakes by using drugs” are wondering the same thing, Nancy.  All it really goes to show is that cops have typically recruited people from basically the same stratum of society that they would pretend to protect us from.  Nancy Schwan apparently feels that cops should be immune from the very laws they expect others to obey, which really ought not to be surprising.

A couple of days later, The Denver Post reports that the city of Denver has conditionally admitted liability in a police brutality case filed on behalf of Mathew Combs, 24, who suffers brain damage following an incident in 1998 in which Combs collided with a police cruiser.  Officer Timothy McAleer is charged in a civil suit with beating Combs unconscious.  All in a day’s work protecting citizens like Mathew Combs from dangerous drivers with road rage..

Meanwhile, in Walsenburg, the second of two Huerfano County jailers pleads guilty to sexually assaulting female inmates.  Dominick Gonzales, 25, is sentenced to ten years of supervised probation and only 90 days in jail, to be served in another county.  Seems that real justice would require that he spend time in the very jail he helped run, so that inmates might give him a dose of his own medicine.  Oh well.

On March 8, the debate in the Glendale city council over whom to hire to perform an “investigation” of the recent allegations of police misconduct degenerates into a physical shoving match between council members.  Former Jefferson County Sheriff Ronald Beckham is hired at $100 an hour to investigate brutality complaints against officer Bob Malafronte and others.

Wisecracking Denver Post columnist Chuck Green recommends that the L.A.P.D. interview candidates in Glendale.  “Glendale’s small police force of 29 officers already has half-a-dozen potential cases of police misconduct in the wings, which proportionately makes Denver and Los Angeles and New York City look squeaky clean.  At that rate, Glendale could become the top farm club for the LAPD Blue.”

On March 10, the Rocky Mountain News features an article about a lawsuit brought by a Denver woman, Megan Gregory, charging that Denver Police officer J. R. Schledwitz battered and sexually assaulted her March 7th , 1999, at a downtown nightclub.  The lawsuit claims that Schledwitz touched her in a sexual manner, spoke to her in a sexually derogatory manner, and made lewd and demeaning comments. All in a day’s work defending citizens like Megan Gregory from lawless sexual predators.

On March 12, the L.A.P.D. shows up in Denver on its recruiting drive, administering a civil service exam to applicants at a local junior college.  In case you want to know how much those crooked evidence-planting cops in L.A. were making, starting salaries are between $41, 175 and $44,500.  Who says crime doesn’t pay?

The Denver Post reports that in 1999, 146 suspects were targeted by the Denver police department for no-knock raids.  For all their efforts, the storm troopers succeeded in getting two convictions.  That’s right, two.

We learn that the taxpayers of Colorado have spent thousands of dollars providing state troopers to visiting governors for things like free rides to Beaver Creek ski resort and free transportation to a wedding.  Try to get a free ride from one of these guys if your car breaks down.

San Miguel County Judge Sharon Shuteran tells the Denver Post’s western slope bureau that she will need a few more days to decide whether to try Ouray County Sheriff Jerry Wakefield on racketeering charges.  Wakefield is accused of using his position as the highest law officer of the county to repeatedly steal money, guns and equipment.  Imagine that.  Wakefield showed up in Shuterans’s courtroom accompanied by his wife and two daughters, who together with an undersheriff and a deputy, have already been indicted separately for their parts in an alleged methamphetamine ring.  According to Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Jack Haynes, Wakefield had a “habit” of keeping confiscated items.  Haynes said he was told by sheriff’s department employees that whenever “something nifty” came into the office, Wakefield would take it home.   Wakefield is also accused of taking $121 from the personal effects of a man who died in a vehicle accident in Ouray county in 1992.  Like good citizens everywhere, residents of Ouray county can sleep peacefully, knowing that their safety is in the capable hands of a seasoned law enforcement officer.

The Denver Post learns on March 15th that Boulder D.A. Alex Hunter tried to silence a police investigator who worked on the JonBenet Ramsey case in March, 1997.  Hunter did not want Lou Smit to tell the grand jury probing the case that he felt there was evidence pointing to an intruder as the murderer.  He obtained a court order preventing Smit from testifying, which Smit fought and got overturned.  Acceptable, officially sanctioned opinions only, please - none of this “evidence” stuff for our grand jury, officer Smit.  However, the grand jury did later refuse to indict the Ramseys for the murder of their daughter.

When the attorney for Matthew Combs, whose case is mentioned earlier in this article, requests records from the Denver Police Department on brutality complaints, the city stalls until, on the 14th, judge John Kane threatens to fine the police department.   By the 22nd, when records still have not been turned over, Kane orders Federal Marshals to seize the records.  “Your arrogance is exceeded only by your petulance,” Kane tells city attorney Andrew Carafelli.  Kane also fined the city $10,000.

On March 16, a sixth person announces intent to sue the city of Glendale over an allegation that police officers roughed him up and denied him medical treatment on September 16.

The same day, the last charges are dropped against attorney John Schaefer, whose arrest sparked the Glendale Police scandal.  Originally charged with resisting arrest, DUI and several other offenses, Schaefer was never even given a blood or breath test for alcohol, even though thug cop Bob Malafronte “suspected” him of being drunk.

The Denver ATF office comes under fire for using its powers to harass a Denver gun dealer.  According to a complaint lodged by an ATF inspector, Denver’s top ATF agent, Dave McCombs, abused his regulatory power in a private vendetta against gun shop owner Dave Anvers, whom McComb described as a “scumbag.”  Anvers has long hair and tattoos.  Among other things, McCombs is accused of ordering repeated inspections of Anver’s shop, twice in one year, which is against a 1986 Federal law.  Anvers should count his blessings.  Unlike David Koresh, he does not live in a remote rural “compound” that can be attacked with blazing guns, tanks, and flamethrowers.

The ACLU files a lawsuit against Pueblo County sheriff Dan Corsentino for allegedly violating the Open Records Act.  On December 18, 1998, Kenneth Bishop was arrested and brought to the county jail, where he was forcibly restrained in a chair.  He died after being released from the chair, and the ACLU wanted to view a 30 minute video showing him being restrained.  Corsentino refused access to the video, saying it was part of an “internal affairs file.”  Oddly enough, he also claimed that release of the video would “violate the privacy of Bishop’s family.”  Anybody smell possible wrongdoing here?

Colorado Bureau of Investigation agent Gary Koverman is arrested in a sting operation in Montrose and charged with possession of a controlled substance, embezzlement of public property, obtaining a controlled substance by fraud or deceit, etc., etc., etc.

The ACLU accuses the Colorado state prison system of illegal censorship in determining what prisoners can and cannot read.  Among the publications banned are Westword, a Denver weekly paper focusing on the arts and current affairs, Rolling Stone magazine, a book on English sign language for the deaf, and various music publications. .

On the 24th, residents of Glendale blast the police in a community meeting.  One woman recounts how her 24 year old daughter, a passenger in a car that had been stopped, was so severely beaten that she was taken to a hospital.  Another woman recounts how, after she accidentally splashed some paint on a car in the Builders Square parking lot, was called “girl,” “gal” and “bitch” by police officers.  They also told her “You people are always trying to get away with something.”  The woman is black.

Aurora police launch an “excessive force” investigation after a Bosnian refugee, Senad Maric, is sent to the hospital with a broken leg, a broken wrist, and a dislocated elbow.  How did he get them?  He threw a sofa pillow at officers who had shown up in response to a call from Maric’s mother and sister, who told officers Maric had a history of mental illness.  Hell, for that kind of official treatment, he might as well have stayed in Bosnia.

On March 29, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s department announces that it will release two reports on last year’s Columbine shooting rampage, one for the public and one for “law enforcement.”  The public report, which was promised last fall, will not be out until May.  Parents of the victims react strongly.  Rich Petrone, stepfather of slain student Danny Rohrbaugh, observes that “having two reports about Columbine is like having two sets of books for the IRS.”  Meanwhile, Danny’s mom says that now, nearly a year after the tragedy, she still has not managed to get Danny’s clothes returned.  “They left his body on the sidewalk for 27 hours like a piece of trash,” she observed.

Joe Archuleta, a Boulder police officer, is put on “administrative leave” after he is charged with illegal trespass for breaking into his girlfriend’s home.  It is not reported whether this is paid administrative leave or not.

And finally, one last item of interest, although it was a little too dated to be included in the main text of this article.  This article comes from the British Royal Gazette, issue number 294, dated 1779.  It is an extract from a letter from the British military camp at Wyoming, Pennsylvania, dated July 2, 1779, concerning a captured colonial rebel.  Once again, the summary “justice” meted out by authoritarian goons, coupled with their insulting coverage of the incident, causes us to choke with rage.

“Yesterday afternoon one Michael Roseberry, of Sussex Co, New Jersey, was executed here.  He was tried at Easton and condemned for endeavoring to entice some of Col. Proctor’s regiment to desert to the enemy.  He was attended by three chaplains; confessed to nothing and died an ignorant, stupid man.”

I will leave to the reader whatever conclusions he cares to draw.  Michael Roseberry was, of course one of my forebears.

—Paul Roasberry