Nearly $13 million of the $16.7 million paid out by the city of Denver to settle legal claims in the past decade involved the police and sheriff departments, a Denver Post analysis has found.
Fifty-eight percent of that total payout was for cases where excessive force or civil rights violations were at issue.
Denver has had five years of below-average claims payouts, with no million-dollar settlements. That’s about to change Monday.
The City Council will consider approval of $3.25 million to settle a federal lawsuit pressed by former jail inmate Jamal Hunter, who in 2011 was tortured by other inmates and, he says, choked by a jail deputy in another incident. He claimed another deputy facilitated and encouraged the inmates’ brutal attack on him.
In a brewing scandal for Denver city government, inmates have been lining up with complaints stemming from other incidents in which deputies allegedly used improper force, sometimes in view of security cameras.
As likely new jail abuse claims move forward — including a federal lawsuit filed last week over an incident that took place in a courtroom — Denver’s city attorneys will be under pressure to negotiate hefty settlements.
“I don’t have a crystal ball on this, and I don’t know how they’re going to handle all of them, but it appears people are ready to fork over money,” said Councilwoman Jeanne Faatz, who has voted against some past settlements that she saw as unwarranted or too large.
She also has questioned the size of the Hunter settlement, which is the largest ever agreed to by city attorneys short of a trial. She declined to say how she will vote Monday, though the settlement is expected to win approval.
Denver is not alone among big cities in seeing police and jail claims make up the bulk of their civil settlements, owing to the authority given to officers and deputies — and the potential for abuse or oversteps.
Since 2004, Denver has paid out $16.7 million from its liability claims fund in civil settlements of $5,000 or more, the threshold typically requiring City Council approval. The Post analyzed information provided by the City Attorney’s Office, and the settlements were across all departments.
Overall, claims range from covering damage from crashes with city vehicles to disputes with former city employees to slip-and-falls and arrests based on mistaken identity. Misconduct and excessive-force settlements show up frequently, often reaching five- and six-figure amounts but rarely reaching $1 million.
After the Hunter case, Denver’s next-highest settlement was $3 million, paid in 2008 to the family of Emily Rice, who bled to death in the Denver City Jail.
But that was smaller than a post-trial settlement in 2002, when the city paid $3.5 million, including a $2.25 million jury verdict plus attorneys fees, to resolve a case resulting from the 1989 death of college student Randy Bartel. His car was hit when a police officer ran a red light. His mother filed the lawsuit.
Boulder attorney Timothy Rastello, who handled that case, said the Denver Police Department has made strides in reforming itself, but the Sheriff Department is in need of deep changes, starting with top brass. He also won a $1.3 million city settlement in 2004 over a Denver police officer’s fatal shooting of Paul Childs, a developmentally disabled 15-year-old boy. Since then, he’s consulted on similar legal cases.
“This stuff is just so ingrained in the culture,” Rastello said. “These guys, these law enforcement officers who are supposed to serve and protect us — even though they know they’re being videotaped, and even though they’re in a court of law — they’re physically abusing prisoners.”
DATA: Claims of improper force and civl rights violations help drive claims.
The Hunter case and others led to the recent resignation of Sheriff Gary Wilson and a vow by Mayor Michael Hancock to reform the department’s culture.
That’s key to managing the city’s future liability risk, city officials and experts say.
“There have been changes and reforms that have been made in the past, and the mayor has been committed to doing that into the future,” said David Broadwell, an assistant city attorney in the administrative section. He also advises City Council on legal matters.
“I have no doubt about the sincerity of that commitment and the fact that major resources are going to be committed in the near term to doing that.”
Other cities have struggled to stem the underlying causes of police or jail civil rights violations, which can cost more because they aren’t subject to Colorado’s government liability caps. A winning case also typically includes big attorneys’ fees.
Seattle’s police department is under federal monitoring as it addresses training and other issues highlighted by allegations of excessive force by officers. In Albuquerque, the Justice Department in April issued a report highlighting a pattern of excessive force that included 23 fatal police-action shootings since 2010.
In Indianapolis last year, officials stung by big payouts and a crush of lawsuits against police — accounting for 75 percent of all pending claims — decided to review every lawsuit for the previous five years. They were looking for lessons, and they found some.
Officials now meet early in each case with city attorneys to seek new training needs instead of waiting for repeat claims, said Valerie Washington, the city’s deputy director of public safety. They also take part in settlement decisions, and sometimes the city takes a harder stance on cases.
“Indianapolis had a reputation of just settling everything,” she said, “and we just don’t do that anymore.”
Denver has seen spikes in legal settlements before.
In 2003, the administration of then-Mayor John Hickenlooper set out to rein in legal costs following several expensive settlements, in part resulting from Denver police actions. From 2000 to 2002, according to a news report a few years later, Denver spent $14.4 million to settle threatened or pending lawsuits of all kinds.
DATA: Breakdown of civil settlement payouts over the last decade.
The City Attorney’s Office cut back on using outside firms, arguing its attorneys were likelier to handle cases more shrewdly. They still do so, making exceptions when conflicts of interest come up among multiple city defendants, Broadwell said, or the workload gets too high. The tab for outside counsel last year was $616,100.
The Childs shooting also prompted the creation of the city’s independent monitor. Years later, Nick Mitchell, now in that post, is credited with reopening dozens of previously ignored jail complaints because of a problem highlighted by the Hunter lawsuit.
After several years of police reform efforts, the police department still isn’t immune to incidents tarnishing its reputation, or questions about how far it’s come.
Last week, Police Chief Robert White wrote a public letter to address concerns about excessive force after an officer was caught on video shoving a Rockies fan at Coors Field.
White said he had restructured the department, overhauled the discipline process and worked to improve transparency.
“A great deal of that change was prompted by community frustration with police misconduct and the time it took to resolve administrative cases against police officers,” White wrote.
The results, White wrote, have been shown through a reduced number of community complaints, including those about inappropriate force. He also said the department is completing internal investigations at a faster pace.
“All of these are signs that we are heading in the right direction,” White’s letter said. “But I can assure you that I am not satisfied. There is still room to improve, and I am committed to move to that end.”
At the Denver Sheriff Department, leaders have pledged to review the entire operation to curb the number of excessive force complaints.
Hancock has called for a review of the department’s operations and wants to hire an outside firm to do it.
He also appointed Elias Diggins as the new sheriff after Wilson stepped down.
Before leaving the post, Wilson had organized four task forces to make recommendations on policies such as discipline procedure. He also had planned to require more training and to introduce programs aimed at relieving deputies’ stress. Those plans remain in place.
Most deputies are doing their jobs well, Diggins said. But the few who are not have been warned.
“Department-wide, we have to take a step back and revisit everything in the agency to see what improvements need to be made,” Diggins told The Post in an interview last week.
Jon Murray: 303-954-1405, jmurray@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JonMurray
Staff writer Noelle Phillips contributed to this story.
