There is enough evidence the Denver Police Department harbors a culture of abuse and coverup that the city can be put on trial for it, a federal judge has ruled in a scathing order.

U.S. District Judge William J. Martinez concluded there is evidence the Police Department fails to train officers adequately on use of force, fails to investigate or punish instances of excessive force and tolerates a code of silence surrounding abuse.

Martinez issued his order Wednesday in a civil lawsuit involving the 2009 Denver Diner incident, in which two officers were accused of filing false reports. In reaching the conclusions, Martinez cited testimony by former Denver Manager of Safety Charles Garcia, former independent monitor Richard Rosenthal, police officials and the officers being sued, as well as numerous examples of high-profile police-abuse claims.

“Although there is a formal policy that requires all officers that observe excessive force to report it, there is evidence in the record showing that no one in the Denver Police Department expects officers other than the one(s) who applied force to actually follow that policy,” Martinez wrote in one section of his order.

“Based on this and other evidence in the record, a reasonable juror could find that Denver has a custom of tacitly approving of, or at the very least of acquiescing to, a pattern of conduct within the department whereby police officers routinely fail to report either their own or other officer’s uses of force,” the order continued.

The ruling is significant because it means the city itself is potentially on the hook for the actions of its officers.

Claims of municipal liability for the actions of police officers rarely go to trial. More commonly, officers accused of excessive force face suits in their individual capacities because plaintiffs cannot establish that the officers’ conduct was part of any pattern.

Attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai, who is representing the plaintiffs in the Denver Diner lawsuit, said he believes it has been more than a decade since Denver faced a municipal liability claim over the Police Department.

“It’s a high threshold,” Mohamedbhai said. “… It’s putting the culture of the Denver Police Department on trial.”

Denver City Attorney Douglas Friednash said in an e-mail he was aware of Martinez’s order but would not comment on active litigation. A Denver police spokesman also declined to comment.

Martinez’s order is not a finding of guilt against the city but rather a decision that there is enough evidence for the city to face trial. He previously dismissed claims of First Amendment retaliation, malicious prosecution, racial discrimination and destruction of evidence brought by the women in the Denver Diner case against the officers and the city.

Denver Officers Randy Nixon and Kevin Devine were fired in April 2011 by Garcia for filing reports about the Denver Diner incident that did not match witness statements. A surveillance video of the 2009 scuffle outside the diner, on West Colfax Avenue, showed Devine shoving women to the ground while Nixon used pepper spray.

Nixon and Devine were later reinstated and returned to work for the department.

Four women filed suit against the officers and the city in 2011. In depositions for the lawsuit, Nixon and Devine testified that their use of force was in accordance with their police training. Nixon said former Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman told him he had done nothing wrong but that his actions “looked bad on video,” according to Martinez’s order.

Two Denver police officials testified during depositions that they were not concerned that officers who witnessed the diner incident did not file reports about the force they saw used, according to the order.

Martinez’s order cites testimony by Rosenthal and Garcia that Denver police either reject or take a long time to investigate citizen complaints of police abuse. And Martinez also points to previous cases — including that of Alex Landau, who won a $795,000 settlement from the city after he alleged that police beat him bloody during a routine traffic stop — in reaching his conclusion.

“The Court finds that this evidence is sufficient to allow a reasonable juror to find that Denver’s failure to adequately investigate citizen’s excessive force complaints and to discipline officers implicated therein was so widespread as to constitute a custom,” Martinez wrote.

Mohamedbhai said he was able to assemble such a sweeping case against the department because of a different federal judge’s order in a different police-brutality lawsuit. That order required the city to turn over eight years’ worth of excessive-force complaints against Denver officers.

“We went through all of them,” Mohamedbhai said. “We started noticing these glaring, glaring patterns of failing to investigate.”

John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold

Staff writer Sadie Gurman contributed to this report.