Denver will pay $437,500 to settle a lawsuit by a freelance photographer who claimed Denver police officers shot him in the face with pepper balls and arrested him without cause during the George Floyd protests in 2020.
The City Council approved the settlement with Ambrose Cruz and his attorneys on Monday. It is the latest in a string of legal payments stemming from the police response to the protests that so far have cost Denver taxpayers more than $10 million.
Cruz’s lawsuit, filed by attorney Elizabeth Wang from Boulder civil rights firm Loevy & Loevy in December 2021, provides a detailed rebuke of what Wang described as a pattern of unconstitutional behavior by the Denver Police Department and other law enforcement agencies in the department’s mutual-aid network.
“Over the course of several days, the DPD and its mutual-aid officers deployed constitutionally unlawful crowd control tactics,” Wang wrote in the complaint. Those tactics included “indiscriminate and unwarned launching of tear gas and flashbangs into crowds and at individuals, and shooting projectiles at protestors.”
Cruz attended the protests on the evening of June 1, 2020, as a photographer and freelance journalist, intending to document the demonstrations and the police response, according to the suit. At roughly 9 p.m., Cruz was outside the Colorado Capitol when law enforcement officers descended on protestors and fired tear gas and foam and rubber projectiles in an attempt to enforce a curfew.
According to the lawsuit, Cruz sought to escape the chaos by running up the stairwell of a parking garage nearby. In encounters with police officers, he was shot in the face repeatedly with pepper balls at close range and threatened, with continued firing of pepper balls even after he was on the ground. Pepper balls are small projectiles containing a chemical irritant similar to pepper spray.
Cruz was arrested on charges of violating a curfew and failure to obey a lawful order. The complaint includes a photo of him with a large bruise and swelling under his left eye following his arrest. He spent more than 12 hours in jail without medical attention, the complaint says.
He has had ongoing problems with his eyesight, including increased light sensitivity, according to his lawyer. The charges against him were later dropped.
Last year, the council approved a $4.7 million settlement in a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of roughly 300 protesters arrested for curfew violations. That suit was also filed by Loevy & Loevy.
Cruz’s incident prevented him from returning to observe the protests on future nights, something Wang argued further violated his civil rights.
“Cruz feared the weapons and excessive force that the DPD was using and did not return to exercise his First Amendment right as a photojournalist to document the protests as a result,” she wrote.
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