Three roommates who grew medical marijuana are suing two law enforcement agencies after their rural Conifer home was raided “military-style” with armored vehicles, machine guns and flash grenades.

A year after the raid, none of the three has been charged with a crime, and they have received minimal response from Denver police and Jefferson County sheriff’s officials about why they confiscated $70,000, 28 firearms and a pickup, their attorney said.

“We have heard pretty much silence from the authorities on our requests for further information,” said Rob Corry, an attorney with The Cannabis Law Firm. “Our clients are innocent of any criminal wrongdoing whatsoever. This is a significant amount of property and they’d like to get it back.”

Denver police spokeswoman Christine Downs said the criminal investigation is ongoing and that she could not comment on the lawsuit. Jefferson County sheriff’s officials did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

Heavily armed SWAT officers knocked in doors and threw flash grenades during the Jan. 23, 2015, raid, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday. Officers “assaulted” dogs at the “peaceful mountain home” and destroyed more than 350 marijuana plants.

Derek Smith and Shannon Riley, who are engaged, and their roommate Eric Hepper grew medical marijuana and sold it to Vietnam War veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder as well as cancer patients, their lawsuit says.

The Colorado constitution allows residents to grow medical marijuana for more than five patients when there is not a dispensary within a reasonable distance from their homes, according to the lawsuit. It also allows residents to grow as many plants as their patients’ doctors recommend.

In a search warrant affidavit, Denver police said they were working with a confidential informant before the raid.

“This is rural Colorado,” Corry said. “There is no law against cash and there is definitely no law against guns.”

Colorado ruled Monday that police officers in the state be required to undergo full psychological evaluations. The checks would occur before an officer is hired, and every time an officer changes jobs or jurisdictions in the state thereafter, the Denver Post reported.

According to the Post, state law already requires psychological evaluations but such checks are rarely carried out in practice. The new rules were affirmed during a meeting of the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board.

The loose protocols have largely benefited problem officers who can shuffle between departments when they have committed violations. In many cases, they end up in more impoverished rural areas which typically have difficulty finding qualified candidates.

“What the public is concerned about is that police departments don’t pass off someone that is a problem in one department to another department,” Grand Junction, Colorado police chief and POST vice chairman, John S. Camper, told Mic. Camper disputed the Post‘s claim that the primary screenings were not being enforced. “I haven’t heard of that,” he said. “I can tell you in the departments I’ve been in … we do psych tests on everyone.”

The problem of under-qualified officers being given the power of deadly force has had consequences far beyond the state of Colorado. Earlier this year, Robert Bates, a septuagenarian and an Oklahoma Sheriff’s deputy, shot and killed a fleeing suspect. Bates, who was not a career officer, reportedly fired his weapon by mistake when he intended to reach for his Taser. It is unclear whether Bates submitted to a psychological exam before being given a weapon. The Oklahoma Sheriff’s deputy program, however, came under considerable scrutiny for lax security protocols after the incident.

The call for stricter mental health inspection comes as instances of police brutality have been documented with increasing regularity across the country. Videos like those of the shooting of Chicago teenager Laquan McDonald and the 50-year-old Walter Scott in South Carolina show officers gunning down suspects as they moved away from them.

While the new Colorado regulation won’t be codified in state law, failure to adhere to the tightened policy could come with severe consequences. Said Camper, “If a person doesn’t comply with this, then they’ve got the potential to not be allowed to be certified as a police officer.”

By Jon Levine

Unfortunately, there have been no shortage of police brutality lawsuits targeting officers and departments in metro-Denver communities during recent years.

However, the complaint just put forward by Kent Lasnik against two Federal Heights police officers, Mark Magness and David Romero, and the department’s chief, Karl Wilmes, stands out for the startling nature of the allegations, the vivid pile-up of profanities and the disturbing surveillance footage images being used to support the allegations.

Warning: The videos, on view below, may disturb some readers.

The complaint, filed on Lasnik’s behalf by Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, documents alleged examples of brutality committed by Magness prior to his run-in with Lasnik late last year. Magness has since been fired, but the dismissal didn’t take place until after the videos surfaced. Romero, for his part, is accused of having penned a report that failed to mention the mistreatment of Lasnik by Magness. His punishment: a written reprimand.

On December 6, according to the lawsuit, Lasnik was arrested by Magness and Romero, reportedly on suspicion that he’d assaulted a liquor-store clerk. Romero is quoted as describing the arrest like so:

“I get out of the car and I go contact him and he goes ‘I’m just looking for somebody who lives here.’ And I grabbed ahold of him and I say…. I just put him in a temple lock and I say, ‘Motherfucker, you do this and I’m going to fucking throw you on your fucking face.’ So then I threw him down on the ground.”

After Romero handcuffed Lasnik and placed him inside of the police car, he allegedly shouted, “Stupid fuck; stupid motherfucker; you’re a fucking idiot. You’re lucky I didn’t fucking shoot your ass. Fucking dumb motherfucker.”

The officers are said to have transported Lasnik to the police station in the backseat of a squad car, placing him on his stomach with his hands cuffed behind his back and no seat-belt securing him.

Upon their arrival at the station, the suit continues, Lasnik was forcibly dragged from the squad car and dumped headfirst on concrete.

When Lasnik complained about the rough treatment, Magness allegedly replied, “You’re out of the car, aren’t you?” He’s also accused of screaming at Lasnik, yanking him by the elbow, marching him toward the booking room door and slamming him into a nearby refrigerator.

Here’s a video originally broadcast by Fox31 in July showing this sequence of events.

Inside the station, the narrative states, Romero grabbed Lasnik by the neck, shoved him in a cell and screamed at him to “sit the fuck down,” prompting Magness to comment, “That guy’s a dick.”

At that point, Magness was outside the cell, but he soon entered it.

The suit maintains that Lasnik responded to the approach of Magness by raising his right open hand.

This move appears to have prompted Magness to start slugging Lasnik.

The initial flurry of six blows was followed by more, with Magness shouting, “Stop resisting” — something Lasnik doesn’t seem to be doing.

This video captures what took place.

After the rain of punches, Lasnik was cuffed, with Romero deeming him a “stupid motherfucker,” the lawsuit says. Magness, meanwhile, worked out his frustration by picking up and throwing a restraint chair.

A short time after that, Lasnik was tossed into the chair. Magness then grabbed Lasnik by the throat, moved his face within inches of him and yelled, “Sit up.”

Once Lasnik was strapped down, the complaint maintains, Magness used pressure hold techniques that use pain to gain compliance, squeezing his temples for minutes at a time and taking “the thumb of his left hand” and pushing it “into the mandibular angle.”

The dialogue suggests that Magness felt these actions were justified because Lasnik tried to strike him when raising his hand in the cell.

“You didn’t mean to take a swing at me, I didn’t mean to bust your face up, either,” Magness is quoted as saying.

Lasnik subsequently asked Magness to calm down. The officer replied, “Fuck you, you ain’t in charge. I’ll calm down when I’m damn good and ready. Dumbass!”

A third video shows the events in this sequence.

The lawsuit also documents what it describes as “defendant Magness’s history of using excessive force.”

Excerpted examples:

On July 5, 2009, Defendant Magness assaulted Dennis Discua. Mr. Discua suffered a dislocated elbow as a result of the assault…..On September 5, 2010, Defendant Magness arrested Maria Orrantia. During the arrest, Defendant Magness grabbed her and threw her to the ground before shoving her into the police car. When her legs were sticking out of the police car, Defendant Magness struck her knees with his baton….

On March 5, 2011, Defendant Magness was part of a group of officers that detained Greg Benavides, Katie Benavides, Raul Medina, and Andrea Roybal outside of a bar. Defendant Magness tackled Ms. Roybal, who suffered significant scrapes and bruises….

On August 27, 2011, Defendant Magness assaulted Edgar Gutierrez-Rodriguez outside of his home…. Mr. Gutierrez-Rodriguez suffered significant injuries as a result of Defendant Magness’s use of excessive force….

On June 7, 2013, Defendant Magness confronted Preston James outside his girlfriend’s apartment, grabbed him by the throat, threw him to the ground and tasered him.

On May, 23, 2013, Defendant Magness entered a residence, woke up Matthew Lister who was in bed, punched him, slammed his face into the floor, and kicked him in the stomach.

Of these incidents, Magness was prosecuted for only one — the first, involving Discua. The lawsuit notes that he was convicted of reckless endangerment, but wound up only being suspended from his job for four days, and he eventually earned a promotion to corporal.

The lack of greater punishment for Magness prior to the Lasnik arrest is among the reasons Federal Heights chief Wilmes is also named in the complaint. The document sites “FHPD’s Failure to Discipline, Failure to Train, and Tolerance of Dishonesty.”

Look below to see a new Fox31 piece about the latest developments, followed by the complete lawsuit.

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. –Police announced they arrested Commerce City Police Officer Kevin Lord late Friday night. He faces charges of trying to influence a public official and false reporting. Lord said he was shot by a driver during a traffic stop last Sunday morning. Investigators made the announcement during a news conference just before 10:00 Friday night.

A reward had grown to $20,000 for information on the attempted murder of the officer. Police said their investigation took a turn Thursday night, and they arrested Lord Friday at 8:15 p.m. Officer Kevin Lord, an eight-year veteran, claimed he was shot at close range while making a traffic stop in the 9700 block of Peoria Street. His bullet-proof vest was credited with saving his life.

Several police agencies, including the FBI and ATF, have contributed up to $20,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of a suspect.

Commerce City Police Chief Troy Smith said he was disappointed about the result of this investigation.

Note: the original story erroneously stated that Kevin Lord was a police chief; he is an officer.

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.

COLUMBUS, OH – Less than three months after the announcement of Cell 411, the version 2 of the app was just released with major improvements aimed at creating a broader, de-centralized means for world-wide users to manage and respond to all kinds of emergencies, using small trust-based networks of friends and family members. When alerted for help, the responders will receive turn by turn directions to the location where one needs help, an estimated time of arrival and distance to their location.

While the app was born out of activists’ need to maintain police accountability, track events with GPS accuracy and send out real-time alerts, the Cell 411 platform now includes other default alerts aimed at helping school kids when they are being bullied, and a “general alert” which can be customized to alert the trusted network of any particular emergency or event taking place.

In the past, various mobile applications have attempted to bridge the gap between citizens and the State when dealing with various emergency situations, but Cell 411 has now gone above and beyond any previous generation app, especially with the new Patrol Mode, a feature the developers hope to be widely adopted by activists, neighborhood watches and other groups of citizens who wish to participate in improving their communities without help from police or government employees.

“Patrol Mode allows every citizen to become a ‘private helper’ of sorts. Think ‘Uber’ for emergencies or other urgent needs,” says the creator of the Cell Platform, Virgil Vaduva. “It’s a revolutionary approach to calling out for help and reaching out to help those people when they call on you. In my mind, this is all about our society peacefully evolving to a place where the State’s monopoly on violence is no longer needed and government employees such as police and others will have competition from concerned and voluntary members of the community,” he said.

When enabled in the app, Patrol Mode allows users to respond to global alerts sent by others within a specific radius, up to 50 miles. This feature could be particularly useful in case of large civil unrests, car problems, or other situations where someone could be far from home without ability to call on immediate friends for help.

If those new features were not enough, in Version 2, the creators introduced the most striking feature, the Live Video alerting. When triggered, a live video feed will be streamed and recorded to the user’s trusted network, giving them the ability to maintain visual awareness and knowledge of the situation. Furthermore, the recorded video may not be erased by police, thieves, criminals or other malicious users if they steal or confiscate the smart phone, making the destruction of evidence impossible.

“We have volunteer firefighters using this tool as their dispatch tool, and neighborhood watch groups using it to provide self-security services to their communities. Your imagination is really the only limit to how you can use the app to improve your safety and security,” said Vaduva.

The app can currently be purchased for $0.99 in both the Google Play Store and the Apple App Store.

The Denver City Council approved a $860,000 settlement Monday in a lawsuit filed by a disabled veteran who was beaten by a police officer frequently accused of excessive force.

James D. Moore had to be resuscitated after the 2008 incident, which stemmed from a noise complaint at apartments in the 2600 block of Blake Street.

“James Moore was beaten almost to death,” his attorney, David Lane, said. “(Officer) Shawn Miller is the poster child for everything that is wrong with the Denver Police Department.”

According to court records, the settlement was reached during a hearing before Magistrate Judge Michael Hegarty last Wednesday. The tentative agreement must be approved by the City Council. The 2010 lawsuit named Miller, Officer John Robledo and the city as defendants.

The lawsuit named Denver Police Officers Shawn Miller, who had the history of complaints but had not faced discipline, and John Robledo. The encounter escalated to tackling Moore, hogtying him and striking him in the head.

Moore was arrested on assault charges. The district attorney’s office later dismissed the case.

The settlement was reached tentatively in January . In a 12-0 block vote, the council signed off on the city’s payment of $775,000 to Moore and $85,000 to the firm of attorney David Lane.

After Moore was resuscitated, the officers charged Moore with two felony assault counts. The Denver district attorney’s office later dismissed the charges.

Internal affairs officers have conducted 39 investigations against Miller, including 15 excessive-force complaints, Lane said.

“They won’t fire Shawn Miller, who is one of the most violent officers in Denver,” Lane said.

Murray said that since Miller joined the force in 2005, there have been 36 citizen complaints against him plus two complaints that were initiated internally and one that was “akin to him running through a red-light camera.”

Murray said there has been a third-party review of each of Miller’s cases through the Independent Monitor’s Office. He said only six of the cases resulted in discipline but none of the six were inappropriate-force cases.

After six years of legal appeals, the Civil Service Commission reversed itself Friday and agreed to fire Denver police officer Ricky Nixon for brutalizing several women outside the Denver Diner — and then lying about it.

Ultimately, the five-member commission ruled that surveillance camera video of the 2009 diner disturbance told the truth — and Nixon did not. [You can play the raw surveillance video by clicking above]

The video captured a chaotic scene on the night of July 12, 2009 as Nixon, who was providing off-duty security in uniform at the diner and on-duty officer Kevin Devine, manhandled several women dressed in miniskirts and high heels during a disturbance.

A federal lawsuit filed by four women said the officers punched, shoved, dragged, pepper-sprayed and threw the women to the ground outside the diner. The City Council agreed to pay the women a $360,000 settlement.

The video shows Devine, who had a cigar in his mouth, push a baton with both hands at a petite woman in an orange miniskirt. The woman holds up her hands as if to gesture for him to stop. Devine grabs her arm and pulls the woman to her knees.

The video also shows Nixon step up and pepper spray the kneeling woman in the face as Devine holds her left arm behind her. Then Nixon aims the pepper spray at someone in the diner doorway.

Then-Manager of Safety Charles Garcia fired Nixon and Devine for using excessive force and then lying about their misconduct.

Nixon appealed his termination to a panel of independent hearing officers, employed by the Civil Service Commission. The panel ordered Nixon reinstated, saying it believed the officer’s inaccurate reporting on what happened that night was “clearly a function of the chaotic scene and not an attempt to intentionally deceive.”

The safety manager appealed to the full commission, which upheld the hearing panel’s reinstatement of Nixon. Commissioners believed they were legally “bound to accept” to accept the hearing panel’s “findings of evidentiary facts,” according to the decision.

The city again appealed to Denver District Court, where a judge upheld the firing of both officers. Nixon also appealed, this time to the Colorado Court of Appeals, which reversed the trial court on a legal technicality.

However, the appeals court also ruled that the commission should not have deferred to the hearing panel’s decision on whether or not the officers had lied.

The appeals court said the commissioner should decide on the “ultimate issue of whether the discrepancies in the officers’ statements were innocent or intentional,” the commissioner wrote in its Friday ruling.

In that decision, the commissioners finally and flatly said when they compared the surveillance video against what Nixon said happened, “there is no dispute that certain statements of the events offered by Officer Nixon were objectively false.”

The commission found:

–Nixon wrote in his police report that “he sprayed people with pepper spray because they were part of a crowd which was advancing on him and he feared he would be attacked by the crowd.” Yet the video “revealed there was no advancing crowd and that the few people who were near Officer Nixon were actually retreating from him. Officer Nixon approached them and engaged them by spraying them with his pepper spray.”

–Nixon reported that Officer Devine instructed him to arrest a woman, but she walked away from him. “The video, however, showed that this never happened.” Officer Devine denied telling Nixon to arrest the woman.

“While the video demonstrates that Officer Nixon employed unreasonable and excessive force on Denver Diner patrons, several significant uses of inappropriate force is conspicuously absent from Officer Nixon’s use of force report, the commission decision states.

“For example, the video shows a [woman], suffering from the effects of Nixon’s pepper spray, walking towards a police car, at which time Officer Nixon can be seen grabbing her by the throat and throwing her to the ground,” the ruling states.

When a friend of the of the woman objects to Nixon how treated her, “Officer Nixon offered up more of the same, grabbing the complaining patron by the throat and throwing her to the ground as well,” the ruling stated. The video also shows Nixon shoving a handcuffed woman “hard to the ground.”

During the police internal affairs investigation, Nixon denied grabbing and throwing anyone to the ground. “The video proved this denial to be false,” the ruling states.

“Officer Nixon also falsely reported that he had been attacked by one of these patrons when, in fact, she did not attack him and the video revealed that he was the attacker,” the ruling states.

“[Nixon’s] false statements were not minor or trivial. They were glaring. The chasm between the reality as reflected on the video, and the ‘reality’ as reported by Officer Nixon is too great to allow us to believe that his inaccurate reporting was the result of mistaken recollection, a ‘chaotic scene’ or any other ostensibly innocent excuse,” the commission wrote.

In deciding that Nixon will never get his Denver police job back, the commission wrote he committed “acts of gross misconduct” along with “numerous materially deceptive acts” to cover up his actions.

Officer Devine initially appealed his firing, but later resigned from the department.

The Denver Diner clash was not the first time Nixon was accused of police brutality.

Six months before the diner incident, Nixon and two other officers were accused of beating an African-American college student until he was unconscious following a traffic stop.

The federal lawsuit filed by the student, Alexander Landau, accused Nixon and the other officers of stopping the then-19-year-old student after midnight on Jan. 15, 2009, for making an illegal turn, then calling him the N-word and beating his face and head with their fists, a radio and a flashlight until he was unconscious.

The lawsuit contained photographs of Landau at the hospital with a blood-covered face and a swollen eye, wearing a neck brace. Landau suffered brain injuries.

The City Council paid Landau a $795,000 lawsuit settlement in 2011.

In total, Nixon was involved in two brutality cases that cost Denver taxpayers $1.15 million.