On June 26, 2020, a Loveland, Colorado cop violently arrested a frail, elderly, confused woman, breaking her bones (first video below).
Karen Garner, 73, who suffers from dementia, had wandered away from her family to a nearby Walmart store, picked up $13.88 of merchandise, and walked out. Store employees “stopped Garner when she stepped outside the store, reclaimed the items, denied her attempts to pay for them and called the police,” according to a Denver TV station (see story here).
When the cop found her a short distance down the road, she told him she was “going home.” What happened next is shown in the 27-minute video below, which has just been made public. For some reason, the police chief didn’t know for months, until his department was sued, that Garner suffered “serious bodily injury,” but now that he does, he’s put the cop on paid leave and called for an outside investigation.
The TV station said, “When asked if his department trains for interactions with people who live with disabilities, [Chief] Ticer said they spend countless hours with each officer prioritizing proper responses. He said officers are even trained on how to interact with people who live with autism as well.” That will go over well in the courtroom for the plaintiff, because it proves the cop had been told not to do exactly what he did.
Just 3 days before that incident, on June 23, 2020, a lawsuit was filed against another Loveland cop for the violent arrest several months earlier of Preston Sowl, a 60-year-old disabled man (second video). Sowl witnessed a motorcycle accident, in which he was not involved, then refused to answer a cop’s questions about it, for which he was arrested. “He was tired,” his attorney said. “He had just spent 8 hours that very day driving home from a cross-country trip. He didn’t have any information about the motorcyclist’s predicament. He didn’t want to be questioned. He wanted to be left alone.” She could have added that he had no legal obligation whatsoever to answer the cop’s questions. That case settled in January 2021 for $290,000 (read story here and here).
Chief Ticer can say all he wants about how diligently he trains his officers, but if a Martian landed in his city and watched his cops working, the Martian would wonder what planet they’re from, because they don’t act like they’ve ever lived on this one.
Update (4/30/21): Three cops seen on video (below) laughing about Garner’s violent arrest are no longer employed, Chief Ticer told the media on Friday, April 30, 2021 (read story here).