The first roughly 21 pages share Elias story of his arrest the night of Jan. 4, 2020. "The settlement ends the continuation of lengthy and expensive litigation, and resolution is deemed to be in the best interest of all parties,"Schielke said in the release. The city did not pay the demanded amount and the attorney subsequently released an edited version of the body-camera video to the public, the city said in a news release. DENVER A consulting firm that the city of Loveland brought in to assess the Loveland Police Department last year amid several lawsuits filed over officers use of force in different cases is coming in to look at another case in which LPD officers are alleged to have used excessive force against a man, his teenage daughter, and their dog. Last year, the city of Loveland paid a $3 million settlement to the woman, Karen Garner. Watching my daughter go through this, I mean, I was terrified, Mr. Siers said by phone on Thursday. The suit adds that the slap did not cause Hall injury or even leave a mark, with video showing him telling officers that it only stung. It claims Sychla unreasonably and wrongfully arrested Siers and used excessive force against him and his dog, and also that Sychla committed malicious prosecution in arresting and forwarding charges against Siers to prosecutors. When they discovered that neither Siers nor his daughter were home, they left. Austin Hopp, the officer who threw Ms. Garner, pleaded guilty to assaulting her in March and was sentenced to five years in prison. Officer Paul Ashe detained Preston Sowl after Sowl refused to answer his questions about a motorcycle crash Sowl witnessed outside a Loveland bar Sept. 22, 2019. Body camera footage then shows an officer yanking Skippys collar and pulling him off the ground as Mr. Siers yells, Dont choke my dog!, Im not choking, the officer says. But the investigation determined the witness had not committed a crime and the officer was not justified in arresting him, according to an internal memo from Police Chief Robert Tice dated May 7. In this section, the complaint says that Gates, who transferred from the Greeley Police Department to the LPD in 2018, hit the ground running with prolific DUI arrests. The complaint claims that in 2018 he had more than 50 DUI arrests, 130 in 2019 and 110 in 2020 despite the pandemic. He began to place handcuffs on her, which were too large for the 14-year-olds small wrists, making it easy to slip out of, Ms. Schielke said. A Loveland law office has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the Loveland Police Department and the officers involved in Garner's arrest after it allegedly caused a fractured and dislocated shoulder along with other injuries. I appreciate the difficult, challenging, and often dangerous roles that LPD officers undertake to keep our community safe, and I want to express my gratitude to the men and women of LPD for taking on this important work and for continuing in our larger efforts to improve community policing to best serve our community, Adams said in the release. I was mad. A lawsuit filed by a Fort Collins man accuses a Loveland police officer of wrongfully arresting him on suspicion of driving under the influence in January 2020. The lawsuit claims Sychla arrested Siers without a warrant and used excessive force against him, and violated the Dog Protection Act when he allegedly choked the dog. I am confident that a thorough and impartial process was undertaken and appreciate the time and attention spent to review this matter, Adams said in the news release. At the Safeway parking lot, Officers Wood and Dunlap were collecting witness statements and asking the boy to fill out a form describing the slap, the lawsuit states. Police were . Brian Bartnes. You are just minutes from Greenwood & Myers Mortuary is the first choice for many families when they are seeking funeral services in Boulder. After grabbing witness statements from people in the area, including a statement from Hall where he said the incident did not cause him physical pain, the officers attempted to call S.S. and Siers to no success. Loveland is not a safe place for pets. The citys statement that it was hiring the consulting firm came after attorney Sarah Schielke filed a lawsuit against the city over the ordeal involving the girl, her father and their dog. She said that without someone standing up to call out the pattern of violent conduct and complete disrespect for this community, nothing is going to change. The City of Loveland is paying out $290,000 dollars to settle a lawsuit over the wrongful arrest of a man in September 2019, the man's attorney said. She said, at the time, her records requests were not being fulfilled quickly enough to file before time ran out. It is important to stress that this process is not an acknowledgement as to the validity or accuracy of the specific complaints made by certain individuals about our DUI program, the statement said. The lawsuit alleges officers injured Garner when they arrested her in June 2020 for alleged petty theft. According to the lawsuit, when Siers got home after work he noticed all the missed calls and voicemails from officers who said they wanted to talk with his daughter. Living at Kimberly Court can seem like living in the most convenient location in Boulder. All the investigation and work we were putting in to get a peek at the tip of the iceberg was taking forever, she said. Another person, identified as K.S., was pulled over by Gates Sept. 30, 2019. View this page in Standard (full site) format. So, I didn't know quite how to react.. Both the Garner and Sowl cases were brought to light through Schielke and the Life and Liberty Law Office. The state's second-highest court on Thursday overturned a man's conviction for disarming a police officer, determining that Colorado law does . For Siers and his daughter, they have both lost and continue to lose sleep while not feeling safe in their home, with S.S. suffering panic attacks and insomnia the suit says. The complaint goes on to say that Ticer and the LPD had a history of giving awards and recognition for high DUI arrests, including reporting the arrest numbers to agencies like Mothers Against Drunk Driving. And that starts with getting rid of every supervisor at LPD who approved of the violence in this video, she said. Its uncommon for the city to share information about internal investigations publicly, city manager Steve Adams said in the news release, but the city chose to in this instance to increase transparency. The suit also claims Sychla falsified and exaggerated facts in the police report involving Siers. By: Colette Bordelon Posted at 7:17 PM, Mar 31, 2022 and last updated 6:17 PM, Mar 31, 2022 Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. Share with Us. The father of a teenage girl filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against three police officers in Loveland, Colo., who arrested her in 2020, saying the men used excessive force when they slammed the 14-year-old onto concrete, fired a Taser at him and choked the familys Jack Russell terrier. An excessive force lawsuit filed against the Loveland Police Department has been settled for nearly $300,000. The officers then approached Mr. Siers and asked him to stop resisting, according to the body camera footage. "Accordingly, Plaintiffs illegal arrest claim is barred by Heck.". ), First published on January 27, 2021 / 4:46 PM. The boy, who denied that he cheated, declined to press charges, according to body camera footage of him speaking with the officers, which was released Wednesday by the familys lawyer, Sarah Schielke. Police said the witness then said he had not pulled the motorcycle off the rider and refused to answer any more questions, saying it was his constitutional right not to talk. Dutka, an active duty military member, was driving a rental car and did not realize a headlight was out. In Ticer's presentation to the. "Any complaint leveled against our personnel is taken seriously," the department said in a statement. LOVELAND, Colo. (AP) - An excessive force lawsuit filed against the city of Loveland and four of its police officers has been settled for $290,000. While the witness was being uncooperative, the IA (internal affairs) reports that there was not probable cause to arrest Sowl, aFriday news release from the city of Loveland stated. I was scared. One of them, a Jack Russell terrier, started barking at the officers when they were trying to get the daughter into handcuffs. The lawsuit names three officers who were involved in the arrests of Siers and his daughter as defendants: Officers Matt Sychla, Jeremiah Wood and Evan Dunlap. Karen Garner suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured arm and sprained wrist after she was slammed to the ground and hogtied during a June 26 arrest, according to a federal lawsuit. Karen Garner, who has dementia, was arrested last June for walking out of a Walmart in Loveland, Colorado, with $13.88 worth of items, according to an amended lawsuit filed Sunday. January 27, 2021 / 4:46 PM We provide you with the latest news and videos straight from the Mile High City! It also included information on timed DUI arrest competitions put on by MADD that LPD is a part of. Sowl said he needed shoulder replacement surgery after the incident. The Loveland Police Department was hit with many negative headlines related to the rough arrest of Karen Garner, a 73-year-old suffering from dementia who's only five feet tall and weighs. Eventually, Sychla deployed his Taser on Siers and continued to shock him for over five seconds, the lawsuit claims. Our interviews with LPD staff revealed that they would like to be more involved with community members and community organizations, but do not have time to engage in these activities or problem solving because of the Departments emphasis on its data-driven strategies and the need to produce daily numbers of enforcement actions, the complaint quotes from the report. The lawsuit also claims Wood and Dunlap unreasonably seized, committed a warrantless arrest against, and used excessive force against Siers daughter, who was not named in the complaint because she is a juvenile. While the original complaint totaled 15 pages, the amended complaint was filed at four times larger, coming in at 62 pages of information, allegation and claims for relief. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism Get on the ground, an officer yells, pointing a Taser at Mr. Siers and then firing it. Colorado Portal and News | Denverok.com, Colorado Portal | News | Classifieds | Cars. As for the claim of unlawful arrest, Varholak explained that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision inHeck v. Humphreyprevents criminal defendants from suing for monetary damages over unconstitutional imprisonment unless their conviction is overturned. But the fact that it doesnt tells the whole story. I need to put a tampon in, she yells, using an expletive. 9NEWS is not naming the witness because he is not being accused of a crime. Police are strengthening their checks of motorcycles and mopeds at the start of spring. Police. The ordeal was enough for someone to call Loveland police to the scene, according to the lawsuit. While all cases referred to each person only with initials and no full names, stories mirrored what Elias went through in early 2020. After going through roadside tests Hill arrested Dutka and took her for a blood test. The complaint claims Gates said he could smell alcohol coming from the vehicle and that K.S. Sowl said he needed shoulder replacement surgery after the incident. The suit claims that S.S. believed Hall had been cheating on her, so she summoned up the courage to confront him. During this interaction, the suit says, she demanded he return several items of her property and, after he said they had never been dating so he wasnt actually cheating on her, she slapped him and left on her bike, sobbing. 2021 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. Photo: Paul Zinken. Steve Adams, the city manager in Loveland, said in a statement that while the incidents were initially reviewed and deemed appropriate at the time of the event, he would open a second review of the arrest by an independent law enforcement and public safety consulting firm. Sowl's arrest in September 2019 was capturedon body camera footage, released by Sowl's attorney Sarah Schielke. The charges were dismissed by the Larimer County District Attorneys Office. She added that while she had tried to let Loveland settle the matter without taking it public, the city had declined. With her amended complaint, Schielke also uploaded an edited video of Elias arrest from 2020 as well as the full three hours of bodycam footage. As this department has demonstrated in the past, we are not afraid to have outside experts look at our operations to suggest changes where they may be needed or confirm where we continue to excel, it said. In that video, Sychla can be heard explaining to Siers why he used force, explaining he wasnt sure what the Siers intentions were. He also added that Skippy had bitten one of the officers involved. Phil Metzler, have been. Schielkeis alsorepresenting Karen Garner and her family in an ongoing civil rights lawsuit against Loveland police. The defendants asked Varholak to dismiss the lawsuit because of Talmadge's successful criminal prosecution and because he neglected to describe the actions each officer took to allegedly harm him. In police station surveillance video released on Monday by an attorney for Karen Garner's family, three Loveland police officers can be seen reviewing body-cam film of the arrest - footage. It also included these male adult officers forcibly pushing her entire body against brick wall and concrete, and for officer Wood, at times pushing the front of his own body hard up against her back.. According to the complaint, the arrest destroyed her life, derailing her military career as she was not able to be deployed until her case was resolved, and devastated her marriage. Two months later, the complaint said, her blood results came back with a BAC of 0.02% and the case was dismissed. Permalink. This includes several pictures of Facebook posts showing Gates or Hill being awarded for their DUI enforcement work. At one point in the interaction, Sowl can be heard telling Ashe, I dont know what happened. We'd love to hear eyewitness The roof of a police patrol car at night, with the blue and red lights flashing. In the suit, Schielke is asking for declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory, punitive or exemplary damages, and attorneys fees and costs. Colorado Politics is published both in print and online. Before coming to Loveland, he graduated from Colorado State University in May 2020 with two bachelor's degrees, one in journalism and media communications and one in history. As we move forward on our accountability efforts launched in 2021, best practices in law enforcement will be maintained and we are committed to accountability if those standards are not upheld.. "Mr. Talmadge was minding his own business, and did not pose a danger to himself or others," Talmadge wrote in his complaint. While S.S. tried to pull away from Wood and Dunlap, the suit claims, the officers violently assaulted her as they tried to get her in handcuffs, including slamming her body and limbs onto the concrete and against the brick wall while pushing their bodiesagainst her back. The city said Ashe violated three department policies and procedures: limits of authority and exercise discretion; search and seizure; and use of force. Mr. Siers said his daughter had nightmares for months. The lawsuit alleged officers violated Sowl's constitutional rights when they arrested him for refusing to answer questions as a witness about a motorcycle crash outside a Loveland bar Sept. 22, 2019. ( Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. The attorney representing Karen Garner and her family released a video Monday of officers discussing and joking about injuring Garner after her arrest. With more equipment and more officers, they are able to make more arrests and then point to those arrest stats as proof of rising crime levels that they then proclaim requires more funding, equipment and officers to solve. She begged the officers to let her grab a tampon, but they told her no, causing her to flail and then collapse on the ground in tears, the lawsuit states. The city said Ashe violated three department policies and procedures: limits of authority and exercise discretion; search and seizure; and use of force. S.S. can be heard crying and yelling in the background. Colorado Supreme Court ruling makes more police internal investigations accessible. DENVER OK is your Colorado news, entertainment, music & fashion website. This included slamming her body and limbs down into concrete multiples times, the lawsuit says. Emergency medical personnel arrived, along with police officers from the Loveland Police Department. Our website features subscriber-only news stories daily, designed for public policy arena professionals. Sowl said he needed shoulder replacement surgery after the incident, according to the lawsuit. While both Siers and S.S. can be heard screaming to not choke my dog, Sychla responds by saying he is a K-9 officer. Be Nice. According to the Associated Press, Garcia said the settlement states the city and officers do not admit any guilt in this case. According to the suit, S.S., who was 14 years old at the time, lived with Siers at their home in Loveland. In a written response reflecting many points Stewart said during Mondays press conference, the department said it can not comment on specific cases and wants to be transparent and open in our work.. The city announced Tuesday it was again bringing in Jensen Hughes to review the latest incident, which happened on June 20, 2020, and involved a 14-year-old Loveland girl who was accused by police of domestic violence after she slapped her boyfriend, as well as the girls father, who was tased by an officer while trying to remove his dog from the scene. She had been dating 18-year-old Elijah Hall and, around lunchtime on June 20, 2020, she rode her bike to the nearby Safeway where she found Hall with another woman. 2023 www.coloradoan.com. Chief Ticer and Sergeant Hill did not care about these poor innocent people Gates was victimizing without consequence, the complaint said. Support her work and that of other Coloradoan journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today. They have used this funding to buy themselves more equipment and hire more officers. The civil lawsuit alleges Loveland police officer William Gates falsely arrested Harris Elias on suspicion of DUI while driving in midtown Fort . To always use Standard format on my mobile device: Go to My Account, About | Copyright | Privacy | Terms of service | Contact. Really it's a testament to how bad things are at Loveland is that they know they're being recorded, and they don't change their behavior, because they just don't care, Schielke said in an interview. Without intervention, this self-serving scam will continue and the wake of innocent citizens whose lives are destroyed by it will continue to grow.. Excess Force Suit Against Loveland Police Settled For $290,000 January 27, 2021 / 4:46 PM / CBS Colorado LOVELAND, Colo. (AP) - An excessive force lawsuit filed against the city of. At one point in the interaction, Sowl can be heard telling Ashe, "I don't know what happened. The Loveland Police Department officers had searched for the daughter, who is identified in the lawsuit only as S.S., after she slapped a boy in a Safeway supermarket parking lot because she believed he had been cheating on her with another girl, the lawsuit states. Mr. Siers then asked the officers to stop, saying she was just a child. Talmadge's roommate reported that Talmadge assaulted him and Talmadge resisted when officers told him he was under arrest. Schielke indeed did release the video on YouTube, as well as the lawsuit she said was filed Wednesday in Larimer County District Court on behalf of Jon Siers and his daughter. We hope you will find useful information in the links on the left. Don't knowingly lie about anyone Schielke filed a 52-page lawsuit Wednesday accusing Officer Hopp, Officer Daria Jalali, Sgt. Thank you for your interest in the Loveland Police Department. Siers then can be seen complying with Sychla as he handcuffs him, but asks him to put the dogs away, stating he doesnt want the officers to shoot them. Schielke, of the Life and Liberty Law Office, filed the original complaint in January, claiming Fort Collins resident Harris Elias was wrongfully arrested by LPD officer William Gates in early 2020 for DUI. Motorcycles can be very heavy and can cause severe damage even when just tipping over while stopped. Players given Kratom by Colorado coach, police say, Skier Shiffrin's quest for 86th win extended after downhill, 77 inches of snow fall at Colorado ski area in 9 days, City of Loveland chooses firm to conduct independent review after arrest of Karen Garner, Former Loveland officer faces assault charge, accused of writing inaccurate reports related to Karen Garner's arrest, Karen Garner's family feels more 'concern than relief' after charges announced against officers, Policy 1.02: Limits of Authority and Exercise of Discretion. According to the lawsuit, Siers was aware an LPD officer had shot and killed a familys dog in the past year (which Schielke also filed suit over) and wanted to take the dog inside so it was not shot if it bit one of the officers. On a form that asked the boy if the actions of S.S. caused him pain, he marked, No., It was the middle of the day and there was little else to do, the lawsuit states, adding that the officers were bored.. The city of Loveland and Loveland Police Department settled the lawsuit with Sowl in January for nearly $300,000. The event also allegedly changed Skippys entire demeanor; he became extremely aggressive with every stranger to come near the Siers home and eventually had to be rehomed to family out of state. Schielke said the names used in the suit were gained from a records request made to the LPD and, out of respect for each persons privacy, she did not include their full names with the exception of one person. A federal judge has dismissed a man's lawsuit against the city of Loveland and multiple police officers that alleged excessive force and unlawful arrest. I feel that there needs to be a change in law enforcement, Mr. Siers said. The lawsuit says the girl, Siers and the dog have all suffered since the ordeal that day and that the dog has become extremely aggressive with every stranger.. His two dogs Montana, a chihuahua, and Skippy, a Jack Russell terrier were on long leashes outside the house. She said that her hope with the filing of this amended lawsuit is to address problems she sees in how the LPD operates its DUI enforcement, focusing on her concern with incentives given to officers to arrest and charge citizens. Garner's arrest drew national attention after body camera footage released by her family's lawyer showed former Loveland Police Department officer Austin Hopp forcibly detain the then. No wonder why you guys get a bad rap, Siers can be heard saying when Sychla returns to him on the ground. Following Schielkes early Wednesday release, the city published its own response to the event, stating that it will have Jensen Hughes conduct an independent investigation of the incident. Ashe twisted Sowls arm behind his back and pushed his face into the ground, according to a civil rights lawsuit. In a news release and in discussions with the Reporter-Herald, Schielke described the arrest as senseless and needless violence.
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