News from Denver, Colorado:
Denver is about to pay up again after a confrontation between civilians and police. This time, it’s a wrongful prosecution case.
A jury awarded a family $1.8 million Friday evening for a mistaken raid on their home back in 2009. While 9NEWS awaits the officers’ account of what happened, the family involved is speaking out about the events of that night.
Jan. 27 is a date Daniel Martinez, Jr. and his family have been reliving for five years. Martinez’s son, Daniel Martinez III, says at around 11 p.m., four Denver Police officers came pounding on their front door.
“They pushed through the door and pushed my dad against the wall. Then I saw them grab my little brother and saw them slam his head through the window. I screamed, ‘you can’t do that. You can’t do that, he’s a minor,'” Martinez said. “Then, they put me in a chokehold, had taken me outside, body-slammed me onto the concrete, put a knee in my back and handcuffed me right there.”
The family’s attorney, Kathryn Stimson, says that night DPD was conducting what law enforcement refers to as a “Knock and Talk.”
She says they were following up on a tip they received that two felons were selling drugs and running a brothel inside of a home located in the 1200 block of Stuart Street. Stimson said those tenants had moved out over a month before. About two weeks later, the Martinez family moved in.
Martinez says when the officers broke into his house, he was confused and afraid for his kids.
“I felt helpless, helpless and confused, scared. I didn’t know what was happening,” Martinez said.
Martinez was later charged with resisting arrest. His sons were charged with assaulting an officer. In 2010, all of them had either been acquitted or had their charges dropped. Stimson says that is when the family filed the lawsuit.
After being awarded the $1.8 million, Martinez says he’s glad that justice has been served, but still worries for his family.
“I’m constantly looking out the window, I’m still in fear,” Martinez said. ” I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Stimson says the jury upheld the claims of wrongful prosecution against the officers but not the claim of excessive force.
So let me get this straight. A “knock and talk” is where cops come and bust in your door and beat the hell out of the occupants of the home, and you have to fight it all in court, and you have the community ignore your bruises, and then the community has to turn around and pay for what the cops did while the cops go unmolested and without responsibility or accountability, as if it was all some sort of obscene, bizarre, reality-horror show that costs obscene amounts of money the community doesn’t really have?
Okay. I think I’ve got it now.
