Yesterday, Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board (COB) sent the attached letter regarding recent public statements by the Denver Police Department. The letter hammers the conduct of the DPD in the aftermath of a disturbing incident where a pregnant women was tripped by officers:

We, the members of the Citizen Oversight Board write to you in response to DPD’s recent public statements about an open investigation by Internal Affairs (IAB). We have very serious concerns about some of these statements, which in our view lack objectivity, could compromise the investigation, and could intimidate people from coming forward if they witness perceived misconduct by DPD officers in the future.

On November 24, 2014, Fox31 aired a news story about an officer who was shown punching a man a number of times allegedly to remove drugs from his mouth, and then shown tripping his pregnant girlfriend when she approached. A witness to this event stated in the Fox31 story that officers had used inappropriate force against this man and his girlfriend. The witness also stated that officers threatened to arrest him, and that an officer took his tablet computer and deleted a video of the situation. The story stated that the witness was later told by friends to delete the video, which he had recovered from the cloud, so the DPD would not attempt to “jam him up.”

We understand from other news stories, and from the Independent Monitor, that IAB has opened an investigation to look into this incident. On November 28, although the investigation had just begun, the DPD issued a four-page press release about the incident on DPD’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts. In the release, the DPD repeatedly defended the behavior of officers involved in this situation, including stating that their use of force was appropriate. For example, the release suggested that the officers’ use of force had been necessary because of the arrested man’s own “violent resist[ance to] officers and refus[al] to obey their legal commands.” When discussing the officer’s decision to repeatedly punch the arrested man in the face, rather than using other means to remove drugs from his mouth, the release said “we feel this was the better of the two choices.” Regarding the force used against the arrested man’s pregnant girlfriend, the release stated that the officers had “acted appropriately” in pushing her. These statements, which were made without the benefit of a completed IAB investigation, lead us to believe that the DPD has already made up its mind about this matter.

The press release also made statements to attack the credibility of the witness who came forward with the video. It stated that the witness has a criminal record, and listed several crimes that he was allegedly imprisoned for in another state. It stated that he was recently released after a “lengthy” prison sentence, and that the witness has “six aliases,” which occurs as a result of a legal name change or “the illegal use of someone else’s name or lying about one’s identity to the police.”