Killing of Homeless Preacher to Cost Denver $4.6 Million

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/26550-focus-cops-killing-of-homeless-preacher-to-cost-denver-46-million

Maybe one day police departments will decide they can no longer afford this.

Federal jury’s three-week trial verdict: police had “evil motive”

urveillance video shows the large, open booking room of Denver’s brand new Downtown Detention Center, shortly after 3:30 a.m. on July 9, 2010. It shows Denver County sheriff’s deputies grabbing and killing an unarmed, shoeless black man in a public place for no good reason. More than four years later, an all-white, seven-member federal jury has now delivered a verdict against the cops and the city of Denver. On October 14, the jury found that the cops had acted with “evil motive” toward Rev. Marvin Booker, and the city is ordered to pay $4.6 million to the victim’s family.

Despite the evidence of police murderousness so clear on surveillance video from several angles, the city prosecutor refused to bring any charges in the case, and the city hierarchy has stonewalled acceptance of any responsibility for four years. A federal judge has twice sanctioned the city for withholding evidence. The city’s “defense” in court consisted largely of character assassination of the dead victim. The city has not yet said whether it will appeal the jury verdict.

Denver is broken, as this case illustrates. Denver officials from the top down have shown a stunning willingness to deny obvious factual evidence, and an even more disheartening lack of empathy for the victim and his family that continues to the present. From 2004 to early 2014, Denver paid more than $16 million in settlements for the behavior of its police and sheriff’s department, mostly for violence of civil rights abuses. That was after things started to get better. From 2000 to 2002, Denver paid $14.4 million to settle similar lawsuits. In 2013 alone, the Denver district attorney spent $616,100 hiring outside counsel to help with the caseload.

Now the city owes another $4.6 million for a killing. In August, Denver settled a jail brutality case for $3.25 million. What’s wrong with Denver is not unique. From New York to Los Angeles, from Chicago to New Orleans, from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Thetford, Vermont, outbreaks of police violence leave innocent people dead and the killings unredressed. In late 2011, the U.S. Justice Department was in the midst of investigating 17 different police departments, “more than at any time in the division’s history,” according to a Civil Rights Division attorney. Three years later, the numbers are worse.