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Two of Denver’s top law enforcement officials are butting heads over how the city handled the firing of sheriff’s deputies who were accused of abusing inmates.
District Attorney Mitch Morrissey sent a letter last month that began the exchange, criticizing the city’s public safety director for her office’s findings in the high-profile firings of two deputies following excessive force captured on video.
Morrissey’s Jan. 7 memo centers on the termination notice sent to Deputy Thomas Ford, who last July punched inmate Kyle Askins in the face and was fired. Morrissey’s memo to director Stephanie O’Malley says her office claimed the former deputy hit and kicked Askins, but that the kick never happened.
“The bottom line for me is that a careful study of the video by numerous law enforcement personnel shows no proof of a kick,” Morrissey wrote.
Ford’s use of force was reviewed by the Denver police internal affairs bureau, the commander of the sheriff department’s internal affairs bureau and Morrissey’s office, including the district attorney himself. Morrissey also questioned how O’Malley’s office came to the conclusion there was a kick, writing “there was never any allegation of a kick” until it was made repeatedly in the termination letter.
The memo further highlighted what Morrissey called the “misapplication of criminal law” in Ford’s termination notice and in a similar notice sent to another deputy.
In both notices, the public safety department wrote they found through a “preponderance of evidence” that the deputies had broken state law. The notices to Ford and former Deputy Edward Keller, also fired in a use-of-force violation, say the deputies committed third-degree assault against inmates.
Morrissey wrote that only he has the power and responsibility for filing criminal charges and that the department’s claims are improper and “highly misleading.”
Keller was terminated for choking former inmate Jamal Hunter, who received a $3.25 million settlement from the city for abuses he suffered inside the jail.
Ford, who had been a deputy for six years, was also implicated in the 2011 attack on Hunter.
Both deputies are appealing their terminations.
O’Malley responded to Morrissey in a Jan. 29 letter saying her office is dictated to use a “preponderance of evidence” standard and that it has done so for many years.
“My office is firm in its belief that the disciplinary determinations involving both former deputies Ford and Keller were appropriate and supported by the evidence,” O’Malley wrote in her response.
In response to inquiries from The Denver Post, the safety department declined to address Morrissey’s complaints that Ford never kicked an inmate. The department said in a statement that “given that the Ford case remains actively under appeal, it would be inappropriate for the executive director to participate in a media interview about the case.”
O’Malley has been under fire from the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police, the union that represents Denver sheriff’s deputies, for an increase in firings. The union’s membership say O’Malley and other city leaders are too quick to condemn them in use-of-force cases.
Last month, the union accused O’Malley and Mayor Michael Hancock of “union busting” after Frank Gale, a union official and former chief of the Denver Detention Center, was fired for providing favorable treatment to a department captain who had been arrested and then lying about it during an internal investigation.
Throughout the memo, Morrissey says the purpose of the letter is to point out errors because of media interest in the cases and subsequent public perception.
“My purpose is to be clear about my position and clarify the critical legal concepts at issue,” he wrote.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
Staff writer Noelle Phillips contributed to this report.
