Karen Garner's family talks after officers charged

foreign and i want that one over here up there okay yeah family's gonna be actually you know what why don't you just i was gonna move it out maybe or yeah i'll have him right behind me right here all right somebody needs me to wear this i'm guessing can give you all that we're just going to have them take some questions here and then wrap it up okay yeah i just wanted to see all right thanks oh okay forget about it uh foreign daughter everybody ready thank you so much for coming um my name is sarah schelke last night my name is spelled s-a-r-a-h-s-c-h i-e-l-k-e with me is alisa swartz she is karen garner's daughter a-l-l-i-s-a-s-w-a-r-t-z and shannon stewart s-t-e-w she is karen garner's daughter-in-law on june 26 2020 almost a year ago karen garner 73 year old woman with dementia a grandmother of nine nana and mother of three was brutally attacked imprisoned and kept from medical care by various members of the loveland police department she was aggressively thrown on the ground her shoulder was dislocated and her arm was broken by multiple officers she was hog tied it was all on camera she was covered in her own blood on camera officer austin hopp and daria jalali's supervising officer sergeant metzler arrived on scene he was told that the blood all over her belonged to her and no one else and in a quote that became quite infamous very quickly he was told a little bloody a little muddy that's how it works metzler agreed a citizen stopped that day and tried to intervene sergeant metzler went to go deal with him that citizen told sergeant metzler he had witnessed excessive force and sergeant metzler gaslight him he warned him to stop inserting himself into the scene and as he did so officers hop into lolly said good old metzler all on camera these officers then brought karen garden garner back to the station and they handcuffed her inside a cell and they then joined with another officer tyler blackett laughing about what they had done to her generating another now infamous quote from this case as if it could have gotten any worse ready for the pop that's what we'll call part one of this event and today the eighth judicial district attorney's office announced that after a month-long investigation 700 pages of reports dozens of witness interviews they have filed six criminal charges against just two police officers who were involved in this grievous assault and its cover-up on karen garner an event that happened over a year ago or close to a year ago officer hopp was criminally charged with class 3 felony assault and class 4 attempt to influence a public servant and an official misconduct misdemeanor that is a start but it is not good enough make no mistake the garner family feels immense relief the da's office has charged some of these criminals with actual crimes but we have all seen the same videos and ultimately the da's office to d.a offices the da's office decision to stop their charging decisions after hop and jalali has left this question this family with more questions than answers and more concern than relief these officers did not do what they did in a vacuum if they had karen would have received immediate medical attention hop would have been long unemployed by now because we have all seen these same videos we have all seen an elderly woman of 80 pounds with dementia tortured i continue to hear the word used by various individuals investigating this case excessive force this is not an excessive force case it's torture in broad daylight by multiple officers some of them in supervisory capacities karen garner was taken back to the station and she was falsely imprisoned she was denied medical care while she was in pain and seriously injured supervisors went in and out and we now know today it's been confirmed that a blue team report was generated and it was sent up the chain of command at the loveland police department multiple individuals at this police department watched what hop and jalali did and all of those individuals did nothing about it now it wasn't just ms garner and her family that have been injured and traumatized the entire nation and world have seen these videos and they have been hurt devastated and traumatized how is it that just six criminal charges against just two officers is the result while everybody else at the loveland police department namely the chief of police robert tyser and the on-scene supervisor sergeant metzler remain employed at the horrible core of this case has always been the question of how this criminal conduct occurred right in the open in downtown loveland and it then carried on right into the open back at the loveland police department what conditions made this made it possible for this kind of outrageous atrocity to occur how could something like this have gone on to be celebrated laughed about reviewed by multiple level levels of supervisors and chain of command and then swept under the rug for nearly a year in the past five weeks the world has looked on just like this family and anguish waiting for what most have expected desire to be swift accountability for all of these officers on the criminal side and it is not satisfactory to this family or to the community at large with videos like these with so many other officers involved that only six criminal charges against two officers is the result it is not satisfactory that sergeant metzler remains employed at this police department whether on leave or not it is unacceptable that we watched those two sets of videos and chief tyser decided to stay in charge remain the one in charge of a police department after just presiding over that horrible atrocity officer hop's conduct is certainly criminal and reprehensible but multiple members of this police department assisted him in both its execution and its cover-up this makes them accessories to his crimes it is a crime to help other people commit crimes that is the law in colorado why aren't these officers charged why are only two of these three charged i have these blown up for a reason because you don't need to be the district attorney you don't need to have a law degree to read what a crime is in colorado an accessory is pretty simple a person is an accessory to a crime if with intent to hinder delay or prevent the discovery detection prosecution or punishment of another for a crime he renders assistance depending on the crime that's assisted with that could be a class 4 felony could be a misdemeanor having watched the videos we've seen in this case i asked you did any of you see other officers besides these two helping officer hop avoid discovery detection prosecution or punishment for the second degree assault he is now charged with on karen garner i'll tell you i saw officer jalali help with that not only did she participate in the assault and excessive force event but she failed to report it and is criminally charged now not with accessory but with some misdemeanors and how about metzler sergeant metzler showed up and he immediately went to work on that concerned citizen who stopped to report excessive force he immediately went to gaslight him and intimidate him from reporting what that citizen knew he had seen that's accessory that's accessory to a crime and if sergeant metzler saw hops body worn camera video which he did and he was an accessory yet again when he watched it and he failed to report it that's just a taste of some of the crimes these individuals could be charged with could have been charged with i'm not the district attorney but i can read the criminal code here are the offenses that officer austin hopp could have been charged with assault in the first degree on an at-risk person a class two felony assault in the third degree on an at-risk person a class six felony second degree kidnapping a class 4 felony criminal negligence class 5 felony when that causes serious bodily injury to an at-risk person false imprisonment of an at-risk person false reporting official oppression perjury in the second degree interference with persons with disabilities a class iii misdemeanor criminal mischief a classroom misdemeanor caretaker neglect against an at-risk person a class 1 misdemeanor reckless endangerment a class 3 misdemeanor menacing a class 3 misdemeanor harassment class 1 and 3 misdemeanors officer jalali has a similar list but let's look at sergeant metzler's criminal negligence this is a class 5 felony for sbi to an at-risk person false imprisonment of an at-risk person class six felony failure to intervene to prevent a use excessive use of force class one misdemeanor abuse of public records tampering with physical evidence failure to report use of force failure as a mandatory reporter to report mistreatment of an at-risk elder complicity offenses and accessory offenses [Applause] district attorneys have no problem throwing the book at regular citizens when those citizens engage in crime or help others commit crime why was the district attorney's office here so thoughtful and sparing in their charging of the officers involved in this why were they so judicious with these particular criminals perhaps that question is a more rhetorical one we all know the answer beyond how many crimes were not charged the garner family cannot help but notice what portion of this horrible atrocity inflicted upon their mother generated zero criminal charges and that is the period of time she was kept at the loveland police station being denied medical care in pain while the officers laughed and rewatched the video of her being injured not one single crime was charged for what we saw in the booking area video not one and what we saw in the booking area video the ready for the pop video contains arguably some of the most morally reprehensible criminal conduct of all the continuation of that devastating question that we still have despite today's decisions from the district attorney's office is how it is that sergeant metzler still remains employed here at this police department and more importantly how importantly how and why the why the entire old guard that laid the foundation for this extended multi-hour torture event to occur not just the chief the city manager the city council how it is that all of these people still believe they are qualified to stay in those positions that they still remain installed in their positions the city of loveland the family continues to anxiously await answers to any of that the format for the rest of this is i was going to have alisa miss schwartz she has a statement ms stewart also has a brief statement then we'll take some questions and they can run through me we'll start with elisa i feel like the the lack of empathy and the action of the officers that were involved this wasn't just only affecting my mom and my family it's also affecting this whole city of loveland um i feel like these are pretty minimal crimes that they put against them and there's a whole list of charges that they could have put against these officers and they just put a view you can see in the video how they're laughing at my mom they're making fun of her and it feels like they're hiding behind this department i feel like they think that they're above the law and they're the ones that are supposed to be protecting all of us i just want justice for my mom um i'm karen's daughter in the hall and i speak a lot for my family because my husband and my family can't watch these videos they can't stand to see it as the lead-in story over and over and over her humiliation and it was very difficult to bring that forward but it is the only way that we could get here today to even have somebody finally talk to us about charges and after speaking with the district attorney we're very pleased that there have at least been some criminal charges put against these officers but the story didn't stop with hop and jalali the story continued or we wouldn't all be here today and we wouldn't be hearing we didn't know anything until april 14th so the charges can't stop with hop and jalali they need to continue and we need to find out everything that went on before april 14th thank you all right we'll take some questions here briefly so i we're able to go down and see her for mother's day and she's just really scared and traumatized instead of embracing us because we are her loved ones she pushes us away instead of reaching over and just touching us to let us know she cares she just pulls away she's just scared the first eight seconds of the video that you watched before hop took her down is karen garner she's walking she's happy she's smiling we haven't seen that since she doesn't smile since then she just is so overwhelmed we've talked to her caretakers about her ptsd from all of this and it has truly changed the progression of how her dementia was going other questions do you think she'll ever be the same after this no i mean with covid we didn't get to visit we facetimed we dropped off packages we did everything we could but we're hoping that if we can increase our visits that maybe we can try to bring back a little more of the recognition of us as her family and and and the safety and the ability to touch and hug again but we we just don't know we just have to keep taking everything one day at a time ultimately what would you like to see happen you know there's a lot of things i think that we wanted to see happen as a family in terms of justice for karen garner but there's also a lot of things that need to happen i think for this community as well and what continues to be salt on the wound for this family is that the old guard in loveland stays in place that no changes are being made at any leadership levels which nearly if we did not have the support and outrage of the international community with us it would almost be like a re-traumatizing gaslighting type of event from the city of loveland because their lack of meaningful response and their insistence that the people who were in charge when this happened stay in charge really causes us to sometimes just doubt everything because it's insane we've seen those videos we've all seen them and what would feel more impactful to this family and i think to the community at large would be if loveland started making restorative reparative measures proactively based on what they know they did wrong rather than just continuing to wait and see what they have to do or what someone's going to make them do we all know that when that first video came out instantly three officers should have been fired at a minimum and it didn't happen it took a long time they were concerned about the due process of those officers we also know that after that second video i'll wait after the second video chief tyser should have resigned this was no longer a rogue incident that we can try and just bad apple as is the typical script this was something that happened inside his house where he's in charge where he manages the culture where he manages the training where he manages the supervision he decides who to hire he decides what behavior gets promotions and the fact that nothing has been done proactively by the city of loveland everything has only been a response to pushback and outrage from society is a re-traumatizing daily event for this family other questions every police officer police department is going through alzheimer's association training is that a good enough first step it is certainly better than nothing and i think if i was a remotely competent chief of any police department after watching those videos i would make my employees do that however over age 70 adults in america are getting to be about 20 are afflicted by dementia or alzheimer's so this is not you get a gold star type for doing it type of training this is very foreseeable need type of training for law enforcement to have and to get and you know if you look back in news articles from through the loveland reporter harold chief dicer loves to boast about all of the mental health training that his officers have and in fact as recently as september 2020 so just a few months after his officers did this to karen garner he had a poll article saying he would put his police force up against any in the country when it comes to mental health mental illness training so of course that more training is always better but that is a band-aid on a uh decapitated head type of uh move for loveland at this point other questions for the family if it's okay you had a chance to talk to pop and jalali sit down with them what would you say i don't have anything to say i don't how how do you put this into words you can't you can't i'm sorry couple more questions do you have any dialogue with the police department have they apologized to the family at all they've not directly apologized to us at all i know the city has some council members who have in their um very uh active meetings some of them in a minority have extended a general apology while their city attorney and city manager counsel them to not do that so of the few apologies that i think a couple council people have attempted to extend in that context through a zoom city council meeting whatever it was worth has been destroyed by watching what the majority members of the loveland city council have done in response which is to chide those members for attempting to apologize to yell at them and to name call them for possibly jeopardizing their position in litigation which is unfortunately very on brand it feels like with loveland right now they want us to believe that this is an isolated incident do you know of law have you been contacted by other citizens we have received a lot of phone calls from citizens definitely indicating it's not an isolated incident however just to really put some harrowing context on that claim the city of loveland settled a lawsuit which was another case of mine for excessive force involving different officers in january there's something very important about the timeline of that it's this preston sal versus the city of loveland you may recall on june 22nd 2020 is when i filed that lawsuit in preston sal's case alleging excessive force in there was video and that also went viral and there was a lot of public outcry loveland police officers went and did what they did to karen garner four days after that so to claim that it is an isolated incident is not just silly but when you look at how undeterred loveland police was when after we filed the first lawsuit i think that says even more we'll take one more question we'll go from here she loves she loves picking flowers and buying flowers this is for her this is for mom purple's also the color for dementia all right thank you all so much for coming out can i say one more thing you sure can we haven't been able to do this and we've wanted to thank all of the people in loveland and far beyond loveland for their support their prayers and the media for your concern on this case it has not gone unnoticed and it does help on a lot of dark days so i just want to extend that thank you thank you all so much you did all that hard work you

Channel: 9NEWS

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Id: 5OAmvq5UKZI

Length: 34min 49sec (2089 seconds)

Published: Wed May 19 2021