The city of Denver is poised to pay $200,000 to settle two lawsuits stemming from the actions of city employees — including a case filed after police officers struck and arrested a 60-year-old man who was not suspected of a crime.
The City Council was set to vote Monday afternoon on settlement agreements in those cases. Aaron Hernandez and his attorneys would receive $75,000 for the police incident five years ago, according to city documents, while another settlement would pay out $125,000 to Morgan Riss for a vehicle crash with a city employee’s truck that injured her in 2021.
Hernandez was arrested on June 30, 2019, after he and his son, Aaron Hernandez Jr., were seen by Denver police officers sitting in a car in a vacant church parking lot next to a nuisance property.
Officers approached the vehicle after a search of the license plate revealed the younger Hernandez, the car’s owner, had a warrant out for his arrest, according to a police report provided to The Denver Post by Hernandez’s attorneys at Baumgartner Law after they filed suit 2021.
As officers approached, Hernandez Sr. got out of the car on the passenger side. As soon as he did so, an officer identified in the lawsuit as Jayme Larson ran up to him and grabbed him by both wrists.
He told Larson that he had to stand up because he had recently had surgery and suffered from severe sciatic pain, the lawsuit says.
During the ensuing arrest, Larson punched Hernandez in the side and another officer, identified in the suit as Vance Johnson, elbowed him in the face, dropping Hernandez to the ground and causing serious facial injuries, the suit says.
Larson and Johnson both wrote in their police reports that Hernandez kicked them before they struck him — but those claims later were refuted by body camera footage.
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The footage also showed no evidence that Hernandez took a step toward Larson or balled his fists before she first grabbed him, contrary to what she wrote in her report.
Hernandez was jailed for three days after his arrest and eventually was charged with two counts of assault. Those charges were dropped about nine months later, court records show.
He did not have a criminal history in Colorado. The type of warrant faced at the time by his son was unclear from case documents.
“That was assault against me for me doing nothing,” the elder Hernandez told The Denver Post in 2021, after the suit was filed. “I told them I couldn’t do anything at all, and then all of a sudden, I’m on the ground getting beat up, getting hit in the face. It was brutal.”
The lawsuit stated that Larson was later disciplined by the police department for her actions that day. The Post has contacted Denver police to confirm that information.
In the other case, Riss and her attorneys at Zaner Harden Law filed a lawsuit against the city in August after she was involved in a serious car crash with a city-owned truck driven by a worker identified as Karen Zeldin. City documents identify Zeldin as a Denver Parks and Recreation employee.
On Aug. 14, 2021, the lawsuit says, Zeldin ran a stop sign at the intersection of East Third Avenue and North Adams Street, causing Riss — who had the right of way — to collide into the side of the truck. According to her attorneys, Riss suffered serious injuries, including damage to her spine, and incurred $45,000 in medical bills, with further treatment recommended.
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