AURORA - The City of Aurora will pay $75,000 to two African American men who allege they were independently mistreated by the Aurora Police Department, the ACLU of Colorado announced Thursday.
Omar Hassan will receive $40,000 after he filed a suit. According to a 2017 ACLU lawsuit, two APD officers ordered Hassan to leave a coffee shop after telling him: “Your kind of business is not welcome here.”
Dwight Crews will receive $35,000, according to ACLU. APD in November 2015 came to Crews’ home at 2 a.m. without a warrant, banged on the door, flashed lights in his windows and threatened to break into his home if he didn’t come out, according to ACLU.
ACLU said when Crews stepped out on his porch and police started searching him, Crews pointed to his cat being outside. The ACLU said one of Aurora officers threw Crews on the ground, slamming his body on top of “jagged loose rocks,” causing multiple injuries.
“I think that there is a pattern in that we see case after case after case when it’s people of color who are saying we have been mistreated by Aurora police,” said ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein. “I think that the police department needs to do some self-examination, needs to get at what’s going on and certainly there ought to be an independent system of accountability, some form of civilian review.”
“A settlement is not an admission of guilt,” Silverstein added.“In fact, what I’m saying is we keep hearing these stories, too many stories of people of color who are being mistreated by the police who are supposed to protect them, and we want to push police departments to look seriously about these allegations, especially in cases when it seems there is a pattern of these allegations, and we’ll be pushing police departments to address this issue in Aurora, throughout Colorado, and my colleagues around the country will be doing the same thing.”
APD issued a statement Thursday saying in part that it disputes the implications of misconduct. APD said the department investigated both incidents internally and found officers acted appropriately.
“The Department rejects attempts to denigrate the work hundreds of Aurora officers do every day within the community of Aurora,” APD said in a statement posted on Facebook.
“It rejects attempts to attach racial animus to these incidents involving its officers. The officers of the Aurora Police Department strive to address very complex problems in a diverse community each-and-every day during their thousands of contacts with the public, and they do so without incident in the overwhelming majority of contacts.”
The ACLU also points to a settlement last July, when Aurora paid $110,000 to a young black man after Aurora officers fired a taser in the man’s back, as he said, “I know my rights.”
