Days after Mayor Michael Hancock ousted Gary Wilson as Denver’s sheriff, a new video underscores the depth of excessive force problems that led to Wilson’s demotion.
Disturbing footage obtained by The Colorado Independent shows an inmate being placed in solitary confinement in the city jail’s infirmary after exhibiting suicidal behavior. Under observation by sheriff’s officials, Isaiah Moreno paced the tiny cell, banged his head against the wall, paced some more, banged his head more, and so on.
Meantime, footage from another video camera shows a team of sheriff’s officials gathering outside his door with equipment to restrain him – presumably to prevent him from hurting himself and medicate him. They stood outside watching for several minutes as Moreno continued to slam his head into the cinder blocks. At one point, he touched his forehead to assess the extent of the bruises and cuts.
At one point, after an officer had asked him to stop hitting his head and Moreno responded, “I don’t give a fuck. No. Fuck you.” Moreno sat on the concrete bench that serves as a bed. Eight officers then entered the cell – two with taser guns pointed at him, even though he posed no visible sign of threat. Two of the officers tasered him with electroshocks before he slumped onto the floor. Officers strapped him into a restraint chair and then left him alone in the cell.
An investigation by Denver’s Internal Affairs Bureau determined that Sergeant Ned St. Germain — who has worked in the department since 1983 — broke the city’s use of force policies when he directly ordered the two deputies, Luke Swarr and Frank Romero, to taser Moreno in the Sept. 26, 2013, attack.
“Sergeant St. Germain gave the order when the inmate was not physically resisting at the time or immediately before the order was given. Moreover, he was not posing a threat to himself or others,” reads St. Germain’s discipline report. “Simply stated, there was no need to use the taser to gain compliance.”
The video is one of several obtained by The Independent and other news outlets showing excessive force in Denver’s jails. Most of the cases that have made headlines were triggered by officers’ short, violent tempers.
But the Moreno video – in which a whole team of officers responded to a suicidal inmate who was seated and had no weapon or ability to hurt them – has a different quality. St. Germain and his deputies had plenty of time to observe Moreno and assess his threat level. Electroshocking a vulnerable, mentally ill man smacks of a certain savagery that shocks the conscience of several people who have viewed the footage.
“Honestly, I’m disgusted by what I see here,” said Wanda James, a Denver restaurant owner who blogs about police misconduct. “What was the point of tasering a man in mental distress? He didn’t attack them. He didn’t come at them. Their lives weren’t in danger.”
“This kind of brutality reinforces the problem we’re having with law enforcement right now: That they don’t look at people they’re being paid to serve as humans. They treat them as animals,” she added.
After viewing the video Thursday, Mike Roque, executive director of the Colorado Progressive Coalition, called the incident “unconscionable.”
“They went way beyond the force needed to handle a sick person who’s obviously confused and dazed,” he said. “How many times does this have to happen? How many videotapes like this have to come out before changes are made?”
Hancock promised reform on Monday when he demoted Wilson and announced a national search for a new sheriff to “change the culture” in the department. Still, the mayor’s message was mixed. In announcing Wilson’s ouster, Hancock praised him as a great leader and said, “Unfortunately, the department let him down.”
The footage of Moreno’s self-harm and of officers’ attack on him is troubling – even haunting. After obtaining the video through a public records request, The Colorado Independent edited the 40-minute video to splice out nudity when Moreno was forced to remove his clothing and change into an anti-suicide gown, also known as a “turtle suit.” The smocks are protocol for suicidal inmates so they don’t hang or strangle themselves with their clothing. The gown given to Moreno was far too small for him. Several times in the video, it becomes unfastened, he refastens it and it becomes unfastened again.
Under sheriff’s department’s rules, “Electronic Control Devices will not be used… as punishment, under any circumstances, or to effect compliance with verbal commands where there is no physical threat.”
Denver’s use of force policy states that, “It is important for officers to bear in mind that there are many reasons a suspect/inmate may be resisting or may be unresponsive. A person’s reasoning ability, including but not limited to a mental condition, mental impairment, developmental disability, physical limitation, language, drug interaction, or emotional crisis, are some examples.”
“An officer’s awareness of these possibilities, when time and circumstances reasonably permit, should then be balanced against the facts of the incident facing the officer when deciding which tactical options are the most appropriate to bring the situation to a safe resolution,” the policy reads.
In 2010, when street preacher Marvin Booker died at the hands of a gaggle of sheriff’s deputies who forcefully restrained and tasered him in the jail’s booking area, those officers were found not to have violated city policy. A civil rights lawsuit brought by Booker’s family is scheduled for trial in federal court next month.
In a meeting with then-Sheriff Wilson and other top department officials in April, Sgt. St. Germain described the Moreno attack as “a good situation” that was “cut and dry” because, he said, Moreno was cursing at officers, threatening to fight and not responding to orders. He cited Moreno’s “internal anger” as a danger to the staff.
He described the incident as “a very successful placement in the chair.”
“I thought it went very well,” he told his superiors. “I would have done this exact same thing again.”
In his disciplinary report, officials wrote, “The Department has great concern regarding your ability to act responsibly and to conduct yourself appropriately while on duty.” They added: “Your conduct has compromised the mission of the Department.”
For his misconduct, St. Germain was disciplined in April with a 10-day suspension without pay. He is appealing that decision. His hearing is set for July 29.
[The first video is a short summary of the incident. The second video is 39 minutes and has been minimally edited to remove some nudity at the beginning. Both videos contain graphic content.]
I just watched the video and I’m glad that NO officers were injured. What you losers fail to see is that NumbNuts was hurting himself by banging his head on a concrete wall. The officers did what they had to do in this situation. Would you prefer them NOT to enter his cell and just wait until he killed himself. If so then you would be crying that the cops did NOTHING. U can have it both ways so grow a pair and ManUp
I hate to be the one to have to inform the freaking cop s about this, but tasers and things like that are a SUBSTITUTE for lethal force. They are NOT damned TOYS that your guys get to use whenever they blasted well feel like. They can KILL, YOU MORONS. And they are to be used ONLY when there is a potential of serious harm to a cop. WHERE was the potential of harm to ANY of your precious cops?
This and damned near every other thing we read about cops and their behavior tends to lead me to think they are among the biggest cowards in our society. EVERYTHING is a threat to them, including 90 year old women in wheelchairs. They have become abusive, mean, nasty, violent and uncontrollable by much of anyone. They have become the worst gang on the streets, and there are NO good guys to call to get THEM under control.
And WHY? Because of 9-11. They used that to militarize every police force in the country, and gave them powers they should NEVER have been handed. And now they are abusing that power at every opportunity.
It’s time there be some accountability for ALL cops. This abuse and violence has to stop. It’s time to stop the police war against citizens. Some accountability for police actions would be a nice start. If ANY of US had pulled anything CLOSE to what these cops are doing, we wouldn’t be suspended for 10 days, we’d be arrested, fined and jailed. It’s time that holds for cops, too.
Well let’s see… Susan Green would have you think:
1. That inmate Moreno should have been allowed to continue to bash his head against the wall because he was no threat to anyone.
He was threat to himself. Ms Green did not provide any information about this inmate’s criminal history, institutional history, what his current crime was, what kind of medication he was under, or why he was put in an isolation cell to begin with other than he was sucidal. The Sergeant would have known all of these things when making his decisions.
2. That the number of officers responding to the incident was out of proportion with the threat the inmate posed.
Come on, really! Perhaps she thinks fights between officers and inmates in jail should be fair. Maybe sell tickets! OK, procedure calls for an officer to control the torso, and an additional officer for each limb, the Sergeant supervises. Officers with weapons stand aside. In this manner the inmate is less likely to be hurt as are the officers. Use of tazers has also been SOP in these situations.
3. That the tazer was used inappropriately for punishment.
Look at the video again. The tazer was used as it is supposed to be used – as an Electronic Control Device. It is not a substitute for lethal force it is less than lethal force. The officers were not angry. The sergeant and officers continued to try to talk the inmate into cooperating up to the moment the tazer was deployed. The inmate only had to comply to stop the whole situation. No one threw any punches or kicks, no one lost their temper and the tazer was not triggered more than once. Since Ms Green did not indicate that the inmate was injured, I assume he was not, so it was a good outcome. If the officers had had to actually fight with the inmate how many would have been hurt?
Some of the recent incidents on the Sheriff Department look pretty bad. This is not one of them. This Sergeant should have his suspension overturned and the Sheriff Department brass should back their good officers, instead of just giving special treatment to their crony’s. The public should be careful about second guessing situations without having experience to back it up.
You say that:
1. That inmate Moreno should have been allowed to continue to bash his head against the wall because he was no threat to anyone.
He certainly was threat to himself. Ms Green did not provide any information about this inmate’s criminal history, institutional history, what his current crime was, what kind of medication he was under, or why he was put in an isolation cell to begin with. The Sergeant would have known all of these things when making his decisions.
2. That the number of officers responding to the incident was out of proportion with the threat the inmate posed.
Come on, really! Perhaps she thinks fights between officers and inmates in jail should be fair. Maybe sell tickets! OK,for those who don’t know… procedure calls for an officer to control the torso, and an additional officer for each limb, the Sergeant supervises. Officers with weapons stand aside. In this manner the inmate is less likely to be hurt as are the officers. Use of tazers has also been SOP in these situations.
3. That the tazer was used inappropriately for punishment.
Look at the video again. The tazer was used as it is supposed to be used – as an Electronic Control Device. It is not a lethal weapon. The officers were not angry. You can see the sergeant and officers continued to try to talk the inmate into cooperating up to the moment the tazer was deployed. The inmate only had to comply to stop the whole situation. No one threw any punches or kicks, no one lost their temper and the tazer was not triggered more than once. Since Ms Green did not indicate that the inmate was injured, I assume he was not, so it was a good outcome. If the officers had had to actually fight with the inmate how many would have been hurt?
Some of the recent incidents on the Sheriff Department look pretty bad. This is not one of them. This Sergeant should have his suspension overturned and the Sheriff Department brass should back their good officers, instead of just giving special treatment to their crony’s. The public should be careful about second guessing situations without having experience to back it up.
[…] obtained by the Colorado Independent shows excessive force being used against a man who was placed in solitary after exhibiting suicidal […]
[…] obtained by the Colorado Independent shows excessive force being used against a man who was placed in solitary after exhibiting suicidal […]
[…] The graphic video shows Moreno repeatedly slamming his head against a concrete wall and pacing in his isolation cell. A team of officers toting restraint equipment is seen assembling outside his cell door – seemingly to stop him from harming himself – where they remain for several minutes as the man continues to bang his head into his cell wall. According to The Colorado Independent: […]
[…] The graphic video shows Moreno repeatedly slamming his head against a concrete wall and pacing in his isolation cell. A team of officers toting restraint equipment is seen assembling outside his cell door – seemingly to stop him from harming himself – where they remain for several minutes as the man continues to bang his head into his cell wall. According to The Colorado Independent: […]
[…] The graphic video shows Moreno repeatedly slamming his head against a concrete wall and pacing in his isolation cell. A team of officers toting restraint equipment is seen assembling outside his cell door – seemingly to stop him from harming himself – where they remain for several minutes as the man continues to bang his head into his cell wall. According to The Colorado Independent: […]
[…] and preachers. As excessive forces cases continue at the city jail — see here, here, here and here — they’ve vowed not to let Marvin Booker’s memory fade and not to stop […]