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.

On April 29, 2015 a peaceful protest organized by Denver activists was attacked for no apparent reason by heavily armed Denver PD cops dressed in military gear and using heavy-handed tactics.

We don’t know too much about who recorded this video and the identities of the people involved but the militarized tactics are on display.

Denver’s Baltimore Uprising Solidarity March Attacked by Police from Unicorn Riot on Vimeo.

For Brandon Schreiber, seeing surveillance video of an off-duty Denver police officer suddenly shoving him down a set of stairs in LoDo made him believe his gut.

“I had a gut feeling he had done this multiple times to other people. I just thought, I wanted this guy to be exposed,” Schreiber said.

That guy is veteran Denver Police Officer Choice Johnson.

In July 2014, Johnson was working security while off-duty at The 1UP bar in LoDo, where Schreiber was celebrating a bachelor party for his brother.
Schreiber’s brother had fallen asleep at the bar and Schreiber was trying to convince Officer Johnson, who had the brother handcuffed, not to take him to a detox center.

“And that’s when Officer Johnson snaps,” Schreiber recalled.

A city surveillance-camera video shows Schreiber standing with his hands in his pockets when suddenly the officer lunges at him, violently shoving him backward to the ground.

“He spends 30 seconds hitting me in the face or neck with his forearms.  He turns me over and grabs my arms. I remember the feeling vividly, both my shoulders just tearing,” Schreiber described.

The attack left the physician’s assistant with torn rotator cuffs in both shoulders. Now the officer has been suspended for 30 days without pay. He’s appealing that punishment.

“Should this officer still be working for the city?” asked 7 NEWS reporter, Molly Hendrickson.

“I don’t believe so,” Schreiber said.

Schreiber was initially arrested for police interference and resisting arrest, but the charges were dropped seven months later when prosecutors reviewed the video footage.

“Were you resisting arrest?” Hendrickson asked.

“No, this guy had his full-body weight on me which apparently is 260 pounds. There was nothing I could do,” Schreiber said.

Schreiber is now represented by Siddhartha Rathod, a Denver attorney who has successfully settled high-profile excessive-force cases against Denver law enforcement agencies.

“It’s the historical failure of Denver to discipline its officers. Its officers see they can engage in this type of conduct and get away with it time after time after time,” Rathod said.

Rathod said the case highlights why all Denver Police officers should be required to wear body cameras both while on duty and while working off-duty jobs.

“Even in this case, where the officer was finally disciplined, it took nearly eight months for this officer to be disciplined,” Rathod said.

Denver’s Independent Monitor, Nick Mitchell, issued a report last month recommending requiring officers working off-duty to wear body cameras as Denver considers expanding use of the cameras to all patrol officers.

Schreiber was right. This isn’t the first time Officer Johnson has been disciplined for using excessive force.

7 NEWS found Johnson has a history of complaints where citizens accuse him of using excessive force while he’s working security off-duty but in uniform at Denver nightclubs.

The officer has been discipline at least twice for using force against people and failing to report it to his supervisors.

On June 7, 2013, Johnson denied using force against a man who was accused of fighting with employees at Marlowe’s restaurant.

Then an investigator played Johnson a restaurant surveillance video showing the officer using a “reverse headlock” on the man, according to a disciplinary report obtained by 7 NEWS.

“After seeing the video [Johnson] realized he did use force in this incident,” the report states. Asked why he didn’t make the required use-of-force report to his supervisor, Johnson replied, “I just wasn’t thinking.”

He was given written reprimands for failing to report the use of force to his command officer and failure to “accurately and completely” file required reports.

In a June 2007 incident at the Bash Nightclub, a woman said Johnson slammed her against a wall and choked her, opening a cut over her eye.

The woman said Johnson then took her to the club’s office and poured water over her cut eye and used her own shirt to wipe away the blood, a disciplinary report states.

Johnson acknowledged that he could have injured the woman’s eye when he put her against the wall. But he said he didn’t remember any blood.

Yet, Johnson arrested the woman for interfering with police and her arrest photo showed a fresh cut over her right eye, internal affairs investigators noted in their report.

Johnson was reprimanded in that incident for failing to report his use of force to a supervisor and for arresting someone resisting and/or interfering with police without receiving approval from a supervisor.

7 NEWS found at least nine other use-of-force complaints against Johnson. But internal affairs investigators decided the misconduct incidents were not sustained.

Brandon Schreiber said that’s one reason he wants to hold Johnson accountable, so no one else endures what he happened to him.

“It’s not about money. It’s about getting the right people doing the right job.  I think this guy is clearly not doing the job,” Schreiber said.

A Denver Police Department officer was charged with drunk driving in Arapahoe County has become the third officer to be arrested in the past three weeks.

According to court records, Eric Sellers, 54 who was hired in 1995, was arrested Feb. 26 in Arapahoe County and was charged with drunk driving, careless driving and possessing a weapon while intoxicated.  He was placed on a “non-line assignment” according to a Denver PD spokesman.

Sellers is the second cop to be charged with driving under the influence. A third cop was charged with a misdemeanor assault in connection with a domestic violence case.

In October, police chief Robert White launched a resiliency program to address substance abuse within the ranks after a rash of alcohol-related arrests involving cops.  According to the police chief, these recent arrests do not necessarily indicate that the program is ineffective.

“We don’t see anything we missed,” Jackson said. “The program is working and we’re better off with it than without it.”

Earlier this week, Officer Jean Keita was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving after he was involved in an off-duty accident in Green Valley Ranch.  Officer Todd Parro, 54, was charged Feb. 24 with third-degree assault in Commerce City.

Keita and Parro also are on non-line assignments, pending their investigations.

The recent autopsy of a 17-year-old girl who was killed by Denver police officers while driving a stolen car shows that she suffered 4 gunshot wounds.  Denver PD said that officers fired at after she drove toward them. The case remains under investigation by the district attorney.

The Denver medical examiner’s office also said Jessica Hernandez had marijuana and a small amount of alcohol in her system during the Jan. 26 shooting.  The incident sparked wide protests and requests for an outside investigation and happened during a national debate about police use of lethal force.

Two bullets entered through the left side of her chest and traveled through her body. Her family’s attorney, Qusair Mohamedbhai, said that shows she was shot from the driver’s side of the car.

“These facts undermine Denver Police Department’s claim that Jessie was driving at the officers as they shot her,” Mohamedbhai said in a statement. “The wound path and trajectory of the bullet that likely killed Jessica Hernandez undermines the version of events as indicated by the Denver Police Department.”

District attorney spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough said that the release of the autopsy report is a sign that the investigation is progressing, but she could offer no timeline for when it would be complete. “The case is still ongoing, and the autopsy is certainly part of that,” she said.

Furthermore, an NBC News report on the autopsy states that Mohamedbhai said:

“…Hernandez was driving toward the officers who shot her since since the bullet wounds entered her body from the driver’s side of the car and were not fired at close range. He told NBC News on Saturday that the left-to-right wound path and trajectory of the bullets that struck Hernandez “undermine the version of the events put forth by the Denver Police Department.”

The autopsy shows Hernandez had gunshot wounds to the torso, pelvis and thigh, but it’s not exactly clear how many times she was shot, as the autopsy notes that two of the wounds might have been caused by a single bullet.

Denver police Chief Robert White has said the officers found Hernandez and four other teenagers inside the stolen car in an alley. White said the officers told the teens several times to get out of the vehicle.

A passenger in the car, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns, has disputed the official account, saying officers came up on the car from behind and fired four times into the driver’s-side window.

The passenger also said the officers did not verbalize any commands before they fired.

Denver police spokeswoman Raquel Lopez refused to comment on the report.