Two former Colorado police officers who were involved in the arrest of a 73-year-old woman with dementia that left her with multiple injuries have been charged over the incident, authorities said Wednesday.
Austin Hopp, the one-time Loveland police officer who was recorded on body-camera footage tackling Karen Garner on June 26 last year, was charged was assault causing serious bodily injury, official misconduct and attempt to influence a public servant, Gordon McLaughlin, District Attorney for Colorado’s 8th Judicial District, said.
Meanwhile fellow former officer Daria Jalali was charged with failure to report use of force, failure to intervene and official misconduct,McLaughlin said.
Garner suffered a dislocated shoulder, fractured arm and sprained wrist after she was slammed to the ground and hogtied during last summer’s arrest, according to a federal lawsuit.
The altercation was captured on police body camera video and made public by Garner’s attorney, Sarah Schielke.
Garner was walking home when she was stopped by Hopp on suspicion of stealing $13.88 worth of items from a Walmart, her lawyer has said.
The senior citizen has dementia and sensory aphasia, which impairs her ability to verbally communicate with people or understand others’ communications, according to the attorney.
The body camera video shows Hopp ask Garner to stop but she shrugged and kept walking before the officer took her to the ground.
Jalali arrived and footage showed them both struggling with Garner before Hopp hogties the older woman and forces her into the back of a police car.
At a press conference Wednesday, Loveland Police Chief Robert Ticer said while he cannot comment on specific allegations, “I fully support these charges.”
Ticer said he was “not surprised” by the charges against the two former officers, who he said had no prior disciplinary actions on their record and are “no longer in any way associated with our department.”
“My reaction is: we have two former employees who were charged with crimes, they do not work here, so our reaction is extreme disappointment as a community, as a police department, as human beings — we are very upset about it.”
The chief said a majority of his officers have recently undergone Alzheimers awareness training, and would next month undergo additional deescalation training.
Ticer said the trainings aimed to help officers use “time and distance” to “slow down” encounters with the public.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
