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December 05, 2014 01:34 PM UTC

Denver Police Union Makes Serious, Dubious Allegation

  • 22 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

pparelease

9NEWS reports on shocking accusations leveled yesterday by the Denver Police Protective Association, the union representing police officers in Denver:

The Denver police union says protestors marching against the Ferguson grand jury decision cheered and chanted "hit him again" after four officers were hit by a runaway car.

Several other police sources tell 9NEWS crime and justice reporter Anastasiya Bolton that there is evidence as well as DPD witnesses to the fact that some students cheered after the officers were struck.

The irony of police being injured while protecting students protesting against police misconduct should not be lost on anyone, including the students who were marching Wednesday when the officers were struck. With that said, there does seem to be an attempt here to discredit entirely lawful protest with an apparently unrelated and tragic accident by the police union. Even if there were a few bad-mannered students who heckled, it would be wrong to blame all the protesters, or impugn the larger reasons for protesting against police misconduct based on any such unrepresentative actions.

Especially since, as the Denver Post reports, the "evidence" referred to above doesn't appear to exist.

Although some obscenities were directed at police while they were escorting the East High School protesters, Denver Post journalists witnessed no cheering after a Mercedes hit four officers. Students who were interviewed expressed concern about the injuries. [Pols emphasis]

In its response to the union, the Denver Police Department said it could not independently confirm claims that students cheered.

"If in fact there were inappropriate actions taken by a few students Chief (Robert) White does not believe this reflects the opinions of the vast majority of protesters," according to the police statement.

Backlash from the Denver police union isn't happening in a vacuum, of course–protests around the nation over the failure to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson after the killing of African American teenager Michael Brown have been met with angry responses from police associations, including the now-famous exchange between members of the St. Louis Rams and that city's police officer's association after several Rams players took the field last weekend with their hands up in "don't shoot" protest. At least to some extent, you can't blame them: police unions are logically going to defend the honor of their members and profession at a time when both are subject to widespread questioning.

But scapegoating a few misguided students–assuming what's alleged even happened–isn't the way to do that.

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22 thoughts on “Denver Police Union Makes Serious, Dubious Allegation”

  1. As i postd in a previous thread:

    From our own Channel 9:

    DPD said Thursday it cannot independently confirm claims that students cheered after the officers were struck.

    "If in fact there were inappropriate actions taken by a few students, Chief White does not believe this reflects the opinions of the vast majority of protesters from East High School," DPD said in a written statement.

    East senior Ivy Lindstrom said she didn't hear fellow protesters cheering the officers' injuries but would not be surprised if a small number of outliers did something inappropriate.

    "There are always a couple of agitators in the crowd," Lindstrom said. "When the story came out that protesters cheered, it upset me because it puts the people who protested down and makes us look like uneducated youth, when in fact we were very respectful and were very troubled when the officers  were hit."

    – See more at: http://coloradopols.com/diary/65785/how-do-we-get-this-done#comment-572617

  2. There will always be a few knuckleheads so it's certainly possible that a few of them might have done what the protective associations contends but the even the DPD says it has no independent confirmation for any of it. We do have reporters who never heard it, kids who never heard it and kids on video peacefully marching and expressing dismay and shock in interviews after the incident. So naturally blind knee jerker racism deniers and police defenders, like Modster, jump to the conclusion that what the folks with no evidence to back up their claims must be telling the truth and that everything else, even what's on tape, is a lie.

    Where is video of these crowds of kids chanting "hit him again" As opposed to all the video showing nothing of the kind and reporters observing nothing of the kind? Modster doesn't care. He doesn't need no stinkin' evidence. He just believes policemen never lie to back each other up, cover up or spin events in which they were involved like he probably still believes in the tooth fairy.

    2. It's dismaying to see how little trust leftists have in authorities. I personally think accusing a cop of lying is a very serious allegation that Pols should be able to back up. The burden is not on the cops, we know how these protesters feel about the cops.

      1. Authorities need to earn trust and respect.  Shoving a toilet plunger up some poor man's ass while shouting, "It's Giuliani Time," does not earn much trust or respect.  

        Shooting and killing an unarmed man reaching for a Pepsi can while laying in bed in his apartment when the Denver police make a no-knock raid on a crack house but go to the wrong address does not earn much trust or respect.

        Yeah, there may only be a few bad apples but the rest of the barrel sometimes looks the other way.

      2. That may be the stupidest comment you've ever made.

        Cops lie.  Period.  They lie to get warrants, they lie about probable cause, they lie on police reports, they lie to prosecutors, and they lie when they testify in court.  They even invented a word for that last one–"testaliying."

        Such has been extensively documented over the years in numerous cases.

        And–isn't being a teabagger all about ignoring authorities?

      4. The burden is always on those making allegations to back up those allegations, no matter who they are. By your logic, if a cop says someone committed a crime that should be all that's necessary to put the person away. No evidence. No trial. The burden would be on the accused to prove that the cop was making it all up. I thought you TPers were fanatics about freedom, rights, the constitution, etc. You're attitude would make you perfectly comfortable in any totalitarian police state.You really don't know your ass from a hot rock, do you, modster?

      5. Are you out of your fucking mind?

        I personally think accusing a cop of lying is a very serious allegation that Pols should be able to back up.

        How many cops do you know?

  4. How is this germane to police work? Another transparent attempt to deflect criticisms of a corrupt police culture.

    And whoever is writing the Association's press releases needs some media/English training.

  5. "It's dismaying to see how little trust leftists have in authorities."

    That's a stunner coming from a TPer like you, modster. Aren't we all supposed to be armed with military style weapons so we can resist the authority of the government according to you guys? Aren't you the ones always threatening 2nd amendment "solutions" and accusing those who approve of sensible gun control (or anything else you don't support for that matter) of being sheeple, willing to bow before the  government's authority? And by the way, you may not have noticed but the police represent that government authority. They're government employees and members of(horrors) unions.

    You're a funny, funny guy, able to passionately believe in no end of diametrically opposed principles and tons of pure bull all at the same time.

  6. "Hit him again"?  Q: What kind of monster, let alone what kind of urban teenager, talks like that, with four men lying broken in a heap of twisted bicycle parts? No Angel, that's for sure.

    Most of my extended family has gone to East High School. We are East Angels. We know many current East students, some of whom protested. Nobody heard anyone yell "Hit him again" . Almost everyone was respectful, polite, and interested in making a political statement about Michael Brown's death and the lack of consequences for it. Very few people said anything rude to the police, either. People who were there said that the police union account was grossly overstated.

    For a more balanced article on the East protests, see the Denver Channel's coverage here.

    Lincoln High School students went out, too. So did the Bellos kids. So did the GW kids, and the Bruce Randolph kids. Any urban school with a substantial minority population (which is all of them), had students marching in the street to protest racial profiling and police brutality.

    They can't all be demonized. Why is it so hard to understand that young people want the world to know that their lives DO matter, that they don't WANT to be stereotyped and targeted for jail and beatings and suspicion and fear? 

    Go Angels. Go Warriors. Go Lancers. Go all you beautiful, idealistic, cocky, and determined young people. We taught you to think critically, to question authority, to believe in yourselves and your own dreams, to tell your own stories. We fed you Thoreau and Gandhi and Jefferson and Lincoln and Douglass and Martin Luther King. We told you that protest mattered, that people can change the world, that your grandparents were the greatest generation because they sacrificed and bled to defeat ultimate evil in the rise of the Third Reich.

    How dare we condescend to you and say that you don't know exactly what you're doing? We're not out of great generations just yet.
     

  7. I never claimed to be a smart man, but I try to pay some attention.  I'm a bit confounded, though, and wonder if that Moldy fella can help me figure out a thing or three.

    So we got this crazy old racist in Bumblefuckle Nuhvahda, doesn't pay his cow's rent for years like all his peer cow-farmers do, for eating on the public's dime, threatens the government whom his supporters put literal beads on talking of real war; guy's a con hero we-love-you-cliven gonna die in the dirt by your side…Two, and every time some worker speaks up about organizing her peers, she is Stalin-in-a-Union-Thug persona, marching like the Khmer Rogue across the political landscape with talk of raising the minimum wage.

    But…and here's the part my small brain is wrasslin with

    Some kids to stand up to systemic problems with very real government abuse of power–in its most blatant and obvious form, police power to detain and kill with no due process–and the cons suddenly become police-wobblies, "Follow the Union spokesperson."

    I guess my real question is–Moldy  oldy can you even think for yourself?  Do you know how stoopidish you appear?    

    2. Apparently modster is trying real hard to find a reply in the rightie guide to responses for every possible question or incident and is having no success. He should have checked in with the Borg before rashly claiming not to understand why anyone would fail to trust the authorities which, of course, means representatives of the power of government. In this case paid employees of the government and union members! He doesn't understand why anyone wouldn't trust government employees and union members? Gasp! Poor little guy may just have gotten himself drummed out of the we-need-our-guns-to-defend-ourselves-against-the-goverment Borg

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