Nicholas Bollinger, 9, carries an U.S. flag through Acacia Park during a pro police rally Sunday, Oct. 18, 2015. (The Gazette, Christian Murdock)

It was a pro-police rally with not a uniformed officer in sight nearly two hours into the event.

Pro Police Rally Colorado, a new group that’s made its mission to publicly support police, held its second “pep rally” in Colorado Springs Sunday afternoon, at the tail end of a heavy rainstorm and a Broncos game that went into overtime. Even when the sun started shining brightly over Acacia Park in downtown Colorado Springs, hardly more than a few dozen people had shown up.

“I was kinda hoping there would be more people,” said Janette Pashby, a native Colorado Springs resident who moved back here 12 years ago after she and her husband moved elsewhere when he was a Fort Carson soldier. Pashby was one member of the small crowd, and said she wanted to come because people don’t realize how important police really are.

The event was organized by Ron MacLachlan, a Denver man who held a rally in his own city earlier this year, and who hopes to bring similar rallies all over the state in due time. When asked whether police were invited to the Pro Police Rally, he said, “they know that we’re doing this, absolutely,” but police are selfless and “it’s hard to come to a place where you’re going to get a pat on the back.”

Much of the rally was a performance by 9’s a Pair, a band of Denver firefighters. At least two of the speakers seemed less focused on applauding the good work police have done than pushing a political agenda.

Speakers on the list included Richard Randall, a KVOR radio host, who criticized reporting of police brutality elsewhere in the country; Charlie Ehler, a Republican candidate for U.S. Senate; Jared Maddox, coordinator of the John Birch Society in Colorado Springs, which seeks to support the Constitution; and Joseph Santoro, Colorado coordinator for the Oath Keepers, which also seeks to support and defend the Constitution.

Several people in the crowd openly carried handguns, at least two of whom had them tucked into the waistbands of their jeans and skirt.

MacLachlan wanted to host the event to set a positive example for his children, to lead by example that it’s important to support the people who protect them.

“I think we live in a society of sound bites,” MacLachlan said earlier in the afternoon, before any of the speakers took the stage. On many occasions, the truth is not what people were first led to believe, and a misleading story can “wrap itself around the world twice before the truth makes it down the block.”

“Instead of a protest against protesters, the idea is to have a pep rally,” he said, adding that he recently attended an open forum where El Paso County Sheriff Bill Elder and Colorado Springs Police Chief Pete Carey both spoke. He praised their cooperation and said Colorado Springs is blessed to have the law enforcement that it does.

The hope for Pro Police Rally is to make it a non-profit organization, and make supporting police a regular thing, said Michelle Mallin, who coordinated the event with MacLachlan.

“It’s a movement,” she said. “We don’t want it to be one or two days in the park.”

From http://gazette.com/

Grant Bloomquist is suing nine Colorado Springs police officers after an incident in 2013 left him with a concussion. Bloomquist’s civil rights lawsuit says that he was the victim of police acting “without a warrant, probable cause or any other legal basis.” In it, Bloomquist recalls that he was thrown to the ground so hard it left him unconscious. How did this happen?

According to Bloomquist, on July 4, 2013, he had come out of a nightclub to witness a group of Colorado Springs officers “brutally beating” a young black man named Brian Greenley. He verbally protested the behavior but what happened next, Bloomquist says, left him utterly shocked. After calling on the cops to ease up on the black man, Bloomquist says he was charged by an officer who “ran up and performed a fist strike” to his face and slammed his head to the ground. After coming to in the back of a police car, Bloomquist claims the officers refused to take him to a hospital, despite his obvious injuries.

Though the officers’ account of the incident, unsurprisingly, tries to tell a different story — that Bloomquist, instead, physically assaulted the police — Bloomquist was cleared of any such charges in a trial by jury. Unfortunately no footage exists of how the situation escalated (only this extremely grainy videoof Bloomquist already on the ground) and eyewitnesses, if any, have not gone public yet; even still it would seem this is a rather straightforward case of police brutality. It is not clear why nine officers were taking down Brian Greenley, but Bloomquist’s treatment was clearly a violation of his civil rights.

As shocking as the interaction between Grant Bloomquist and the Colorado Springs Colorado Department was, the scenario raises some especially important questions. What would you do if you were to come upon a group of police officers acting inappropriately? Is it even legal to verbally object to police behavior in the first place? Unfortunately, the answers are not entirely clear.

Sometimes referred to as “contempt of cop,” police have been known to make arrests based on verbal remarks, generally in the instance of obstructions to their duties. To qualify as such, though, the comments typically need to be construed as an intentionally provocative verbal assault. Because of the nature of these sorts of incidents, defining how and when a citizen’s remarks cross into verbal assault is not cut and dry — indeed, it is often left up to departmental policies (if any exist) or, more commonly, to the officers in a given situation.

However, in United States v. Poocha, the Supreme Court ruled 2-1 that “criticism of the police, profane or otherwise, is not a crime.” In other words, this means that technically a citizen is legally protected if he or she verbally objects to police behavior, even during another’s arrest. In practice, however, as with Bloomquist’s arrest, officers won’t necessarily respect this 2001 ruling.

So what should a bystander do if bearing witness to excessive police force? If choosing to speak up, under no circumstances should officers be threatened with physical force, called names or derided. Avoiding further further provocation of officers and a de-escalation of the situation should be the primary goal for a citizen objector. However, the regrettable truth is that things can still go sour, even if special care is taken. Confrontation is inherently risky; simply bearing witness and making documentation (especially video or photos) can be an important act on its own. (Sadly, this can also be somewhat risky; even though it’s completely legal to photograph police, officers aren’t always aware of this.)

That’s why groups like Copwatch may provide a practical solution to this issue. In Berkeley, Calif., Copwatch is a community volunteer organization which plays watchdog to the police behavior in the local neighborhoods. Small teams work in shifts, equipped with a camera, a tape recorder, a flashlight, forms to report incidents and a handbook about the group’s non-violent objectives. According to an ACLU profile, if a Copwatch team witnesses police impropriety, a lawyer is notified and legal options are pursued. It isn’t clear what effect Copwatch’s campaign has had, but it hopes to deter abuse and excessive force.

Grant Bloomquist’s civil rights lawsuit may also help pave the way to further protect citizens objecting to police abuse. The lawsuit seeks to impose changes to relevant Colorado Springs Police Department policies. If Bloomquist succeeds, this case should serve as wake up call to police departments everywhere that citizens have the right to object to rights violations — and to citizens that it is their protected duty to “say something” if they “see something.”

Nine Colorado Springs cops are named as defendants in a civil right’s lawsuit filed by a Colorado Springs man in Federal District Court over his treatment by the police two summers ago.

Grant Bloomquist claims his civil rights were violated and that he suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of the officers he is suing. The City Attorney’s Office responded by denying the allegations and claiming that Bloomquist broke the law by interfering with an arrest. Bloomquist was acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing from the incident.

It all happened just after midnight on July 4, 2013. Bloomquist said he was leaving Cowboys Nightclub with a group of friends when saw a pair of officers “brutally punching and kicking” a black man. He asserts that he called out to them to “get off him.”

The suit then states an officer “ran up and performed a fist strike to Mr. Bloomquist’s face, striking him in the nose area,” and “immediately grabbed Mr. Bloomquist by the back of his shirt with his left hand and the top his head with his right hand and then quickly escorted Bloomquist to the ground.”

Bloomquist said he he was knocked unconscious and convulsing on the ground when an officer flipped him on his stomach and placed a knee onto his head.  He alleges he suffered a concussion from the blow but was denied medical care.

Bloomquist is suing three for their actions and the other six for failing to restrain their fellow officers.

In response to the suit, the City Attorney’s Office denied nearly all the allegations. They wrote asummary of the case for city council which states Bloomquist didn’t say anything, but rather “inserted himself into the situation, went over the back of an Officer, grabbed the man and began pulling the man away from the Officers.”

Bloomquist said he endured emotional pain and suffering and mental anguish and is seeking actual and punitive damages. He also asked for a formal written apology from each defendant, imposition of policy changes within the Colorado Springs Police Department, an explicit prohibition against retaliation and disciplinary action against the officers.

The City said in response that Bloomquist not entitled to damages because he acted in violation of the law, and that the amount of force used was reasonable under the circumstances and was used in protection of the officers and others. They go on to say the officers did not act with malice, and that their actions were not deliberately indifferent, willful or wanton.

The City Attorney recommended Monday that City Council have their office represent the police officers in the suit because they believe the City is required to do so under Colorado Governmental Immunity Act and Peace Officer Liability Act.