Denver’s Civil Service Commission has upheld a four-day suspension against a police officer for using unnecessary force during the arrest of a shoplifting suspect nearly six years ago.
Officer Rick Guzman appealed the suspension when Manager of Safety Alex Martinez first imposed it last year, after video surfaced of the Aug. 4, 2007, arrest at a Kmart. The black and white video showed Guzman shoving a handcuffed shoplifting suspect into a wall and then grabbing the man’s hair and pushing him to the ground.
An attorney who hears disciplinary appeals for the commission reversed the suspension last year. Martinez appealed the reversal to the full commission, which announced its decision on Friday, saying the facts found by the hearing officer supported the discipline.
In another, unrelated police discipline case, a hearing panel reversed the firings of a pair of Denver police officers fired last month for a practical joke they played on a colleague in January 2010.
Officers Thomas Sanchez and Joshua Herrick were fired last year because Martinez said they “provided grossly exaggerated information” about their coworker to get Parker police to check on his welfare and lied to internal affairs investigators when they became the focus of a criminal probe.
Herrick called a Parker police dispatcher in January 2010 and said a fellow officer from the District 6 station, had left work “frantically and then he hasn’t been to work in the last couple of days, and I am wondering if he’s OK.” Parker officers were about to force their way into the man’s home until Herrick eventually told them the officer was at home and fine. Herrick later told a supervisor that he requested the welfare check but “it was supposed to be a joke.”
Both Sanchez and Herrick were charged in Douglas County with false reporting. Sanchez’s charge was dismissed. A jury acquitted Herrick.
The hearing panel found there was insufficient evidence of false reporting and that the officers did not lie during the investigation.
Sadie Gurman: 303-954-1661, sgurman@denverpost.com or twitter.com/sgurman
