do you need to be arrested right now no no no okay let's stop come on come on hello and welcome back today we have footage of the cruel arrest of Karen Gardner the 73 year old woman with dementia who was thrown on the ground forcefully shoved and slammed against a patrol car multiple times the officers then take the battered woman directly to a windowless cell where she struggles to get free clearly confused about what's being done to her the arrest was so horrible that the sergeant would later jeopardize his job to try and cover it up June 26 2020 officer hop of the Loveland Police Department responds to a report of a woman who was stopped for walking out of Walmart with several unpurched items when confronted the suspect claimed that she didn't mean to take the merchandise but that didn't stop management from contacting police as she left the store he rides around the area looking for the suspect and eventually finds her walking along the side of a road carrying picked flowers oh that you want to play it this way it's notable how aggressively the officer starts off the confrontation approaching as if he's walking into a fight without knowing the totality of the circumstances unfortunately for him he's about to find out exactly why this is generally a bad idea ma'am please stop you want to stop the lights on siren stop you just left Walmart do you need to be arrested right now no no no okay let's stop come on come on no no on the ground stay on the ground on the ground on the ground on the ground if her behavior seems odd it's because the victim 73 year old Karen Gardner has dementia caregivers and those in Hospice Care will tell you that a common manifestation of dementia is repeated requests to go home even if the patient is already inside their own house dementia itself isn't a disease but rather a term that describes the deterioration of cognitive function and is characterized by the impaired ability to make decisions think or remember officer hopp likely noted her unusual behavior but assumed that she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol regardless of his reasoning Colorado statute 18-1-707 says that officers shall apply non-violent means when possible before resulting to the use of physical Force furthermore an officer may use physical Force only if non-violent means would be ineffective in effect being an arrest given the suspect's age and size extra caution and discretion is certainly warranted and non-violent tactics would have been the appropriate line of action if worse came to worst he could have simply followed her or kept her in the area until backup arrived to help him aside from demanding her to stop the officer attempted absolutely no non-violent or diffusion tactics whatsoever foreign [Applause] struggle she's now detained come on [Applause] I am code four why did you do that I told you to stop you don't get to act this way come on stay on the ground [Applause] oh yeah all right let's stand up why are you doing this ma'am all right stand up I'm not doing anything right now you're resisting which is not gonna fly with me and before that you try to steal from Walmart and they caught you and took the stuff back stand up oh man laughs why are you fighting with me why are you trying to slip the Cuffs off I'm going home [Applause] stop I'm going home no you're not are you finished are you finished we don't play this game you understand me if you try to kick me oh this is gonna be bad stop stop [ __ ] [Applause] are you finished after a suspect is handcuffed the rules surrounding excessive force become much more cut and dry according to Colorado statute 18-8-803 the use of excessive force shall be presumed when a peace officer continues to apply physical Force to a person who has been rendered incapable of resisting arrest miss Karen has already been handcuffed thus rendered incapable of resisting arrest thus any physical Force used on her after this point is excessive though she is struggling realistically two officers should be enough to restrain the small woman and even if she did manage to run away from the officers she wouldn't have stood a chance of getting far given the circumstances both twisting her arm and slamming her against the car are completely unnecessary acts of aggression that undoubtedly constitute excessive force oh hey Stand Up We're not gonna hold you on the ground on the ground why are you doing this yeah I know I'm just trying to search it real quick no we should wrestled for a minute and she was almost got her handcuffs off no you're not all right stand up come on I'm going home [Applause] what's that position there we go all right sit down sit down here officer hop appears to abruptly shove miss Karen inside the patrol car more instances of the officer's bullying Behavior this isn't just a use of excessive force what he's doing to miss Karen would also qualify as a sultan battery get in the cart and you go do not hook on to him I'll come on the other side and grab her [Applause] wait what what are you doing get out of here this is not your business get in there what's that a citizen who witnessed the arrest has come to voice his concerns about the amount of force used on the victim perhaps this pedestrian is familiar with the Loveland Police Department's reputation for aggressive Encounters this particular department has been on the hook for a string of violent arrests and citizen assaults in recent years these incidents include violently arresting a man and his 14 year old daughter just six days prior to this punching a handcuffed woman in the face and fighting a 60 year old man before illegally arresting him which we've covered in a previous episode who's my sergeant yeah okay well first I can tell you that Sergeant Metzler he's at the police department you can go talk to him if you have an issue yeah give me your car so I can put a report okay I see you in there how you throw the little kid little kid well I don't know I have a little kid and this is what he was just walking and I see you stole from Walmart and refused to stop refused to listen to lawful orders and to fight me this is what happens when you fight the police I have to use Force to safely to tame her that's what this is this isn't just some random act of aggression you don't know the whole situation that's the thing yeah you know but it's like but knowing the situation do you feel differently now oh yeah I do not like seeing it from there that that guy just walking I get that no I get that so when I went to go grab her and talk to her she started running leaving pulling away from me trying to fight me and I didn't see it running you know so before you go to a snap judgment you gotta get all the facts about right here she wasn't running it sounds as if officer Hop was about to falsely claim that the victim was running away but quickly remembered that he was talking to a witness and corrected himself the quick-witted bystander tries to point this out but the officer very suddenly has other matters to attend to I get that I see her walking right there I gotta deal with this you hang tight okay all right here let me see your feet [Music] all right pick your feet up okay let's uh let's get her out over here on the ground we can hobbler and then we'll get in the car on the ground on the ground on the ground we will figure that out stop doing that all right all right you wanna try to get in the car again or we got more people okay ah okay he's a concerned citizen yeah we're good so I can't help get her in the car yeah yeah one two three come on stand [Applause] yep all right sit down okay you got him I love this hey we're gonna sit in the car okay okay we'll get it oh my good credit card yep shoplifting sounds a bit grand for what actually happened not trying to conceal or hide the items Karen simply walked out of the Walmart carrying the merchandise likely forgetting that she had it the items were valued at a whopping fourteen dollars so I went up I found her thank you oh how do we catch her here walking on foot yeah she's walking right here let me light siren she kept walking said please stop um she looked at me kept going saying no I'm going home so I went to grab her started pulling away from me and stuff like that so I was by myself so I went to the ground we struggled and rolled for a little bit um I see that yeah and then I got a detain she showed up while I head her up against the car because I couldn't get her in the car and right all that stuff so we struggle over there for a little while and then we brought it into this car because mine was locked and she wouldn't get in she'd get in wiggle out get in wiggle out all this stuff and then finally about you know we ski to the ground get her in a hobble she's been drinking or something I have no idea she hasn't talked to me much seeing as he didn't witness it there's no telling whether the sergeant would have approved of how the officers actually handled the situation it is the Sergeant's job to find out the details of what happened yet he seems to just take his officer's word and doesn't inquire much further into the incident he doesn't even bother talking to the suspect it's interesting that officer hop uses the word struggle to describe the use of force so the sergeant doesn't have an accurate idea of how things really went down yeah go from there so we have a sunny to figure out what we have there okay to go over there because they got the property back from him before she left okay from the shoplifting yeah yeah what she's how much what how much yeah you guys were you guys talking to anybody over there no I just came here because she left and I found her all right I'll go over there all right and I'll meet you guys cool thanks you guys real good yep we're good this is oh he probably wants to talk to you he just showed up and started following me I was asking us yeah I've explained in the situation he's a lot better now they've just relayed to their sergeant that the victim is injured and bleeding but neither they nor the sergeant seem to be considering calling a paramedic for help though there's no legal requirement to do so it's generally a punishable violation of Department policy to let an injured suspect go without medical attention not doing so shows a disregard for the life and well-being of the suspect in their care as for the matter of filming the officers the first amendment makes it perfectly lawful for citizens to film police officers as they carry out their duties as long as they're on public property or the citizens property seeing as they're currently in the middle of a road which is public property the bystander is free to film with or without the officer's permission I had her handle I just couldn't get in the car all right King TDA Karen Garner g-a-r-n-e-r filing her 60s that's all I got under no date of birth yet what'd she say does she what's your answer okay Karen I got your credit card okay it'll go with you what's your date of birth Karen I have it well you will have it with you I will not lose it I promise what's your date of birth Karen what's your date of birth what's your date of birth okay [Applause] negative sorry I got nothing else it's just from a credit card she has copy she's probably like 4 10 5 foot maybe like 100 pounds [Music] she's 73. she's 73. Sergeant Metzler and the bystander are arguing quite loudly in the background while we unfortunately can't hear the conversation very well the bystander must have made some very incriminating points about the arrest since an independent investigation found that Sergeant Metzler later attempted to switch the case number of this particular video of their discussion essentially placing it in a different case File in hopes of it not being found he also changed the expiration of the video from 10 years to one year take it immensely [Applause] okay [Applause] copy that thank you is there any way to get a picture of either of those double check s she stole some stuff and they caught her before she left and got it back and she ran out so we have the can you contacted her for that and then she resisted so we're good either way so we're good either either way all right if they need to sign up prosecute I don't care cool okay we'll head down there officers hop and jalali make the 10-minute drive over to the station with the victim when they arrive there's a third officer waiting for them she's a frail little thing but she's Riley you're going to the female side I'm outside I didn't know that hey you got the door open come on Karen I'm gonna run you're gonna run oh good thing we got the hot ball you guys grab our arms yep we got her that's okay we got you these officers have practiced absolutely no consideration of the fact that this is a woman in her 70s though miss Karen does admittedly have an impressive amount of fight in her this is inconsequential to the fact that her age puts her at much higher risk for both physical injury and adverse reactions to the overwhelming stress and exertion such as a heart attack frankly these officers are extremely lucky that this encounter didn't end much worse but you didn't where do we want her at all right okay I probably want to take my Cobble off put your knees on the bench with your knees on the bench okay all right oh it's gonna pay you for it do not kick me for it the chip come on that's it dude don't kick anybody I can you stay right there [Applause] [Music] pay for it hey I got her [Applause] freaking day everybody okay anybody get kicked or hit nope it's never a good idea to leave someone with Dementia by themselves for extended periods of time or even short periods of time depending on the severity the effects of dementia aren't just limited to memory loss and lack of reasoning up to 75 percent of patients experience or become prone to delusions visual hallucinations and delusional misidentifications or believing that someone they know isn't who they say they are other notable behaviors include emotional distress wandering aggression and motor restlessness or the uncontrollable urge to move all these factors combined make it necessary for those with dementia to be under near constant supervision as they often go to Great Lengths to get to wherever they think they should be Karen could very well be in herself physically harming herself in order to get out of her cuffs thankfully though the room does manage to hold her tight without further incidents until she was released a while later in May of 2021 Karen rightfully filed a lawsuit I as expected she walked away from the incident pretty beat up suffering from a dislocated shoulder a broken upper arm a sprained wrist and post-traumatic stress disorder according to documents from the lawsuit the case was settled for a satisfying 3 million dollars Loveland PD claimed to have known nothing about the incident until they were taken to court thus the officers involved had gone about their lives for almost a year without being penalized both Lieutenant Schaefer and assistant chief Butler reviewed the arrest footage following the incident and both simply failed to reprimand their officers for their conduct former officer hopp was not only fired from the department but hit with multiple charges including second-degree assault he pleaded guilty to the assault charge and was sentenced to five years in jail followed by three years of probation this outcome is in line with the terms of Statute 18-8-803 which say that an officer found to have the used excessive force while performing his duties shall be subject to criminal laws of this state to the same degree as any other citizen former officer jalali wasn't exempt from this rule either as failing to intervene is a crime she was charged also pleaded guilty and received 45 days in jail as well as three years probation Sergeant Metzler jumped ship before the results of the internal investigation could be announced resigning from Loveland PD in September of 2021 both the lieutenant and assistant chief who failed to discipline their officers received written warnings for their negligence