LOVELAND, Colo. — A parole board denied the request to release former Loveland Loveland police officer, Austin Hopp, from custody a day after he appeared before them in a hearing asking to be released early.
.Hopp has served a little less than two years of his five-year sentence after he was charged with three counts of assault against an elderly woman with dementia.
He pleaded guilty to one charge of second-degree assault in 2022.
Hopp and another Loveland police officer violently arrested then-73-year-old Karen Garner on June 26, 2020. She was thrown to the ground after she took $14 worth of merchandise from Walmart. She sustained a broken arm and dislocated shoulder.
According to the Colorado Department of Corrections, Hopp if his parole had been granted he could have been released as early as April.
"Which would be one month shy of two years of his five-year sentence," Shannon Steward, Garner's daughter-in-law, said.
Steward attended Hopp's parole hearing to advocate for justice on Garner's behalf. Garner passed at the end of November due to complications from dementia.
Steward said the hearing also gave her an opportunity to hear what work Hopp has been doing to better himself while in prison. She said he hasn't done enough to earn his release.
"We have no reason to believe he won't snap again," Steward said.
With this in mind and considering her mother-in-law, Steward said she hoped the parole chairman will not release Hopp on parole.
"One of the things that makes it difficult is we thought five years meant five years," Steward said. "We didn’t realize this would be our third hearing in a year and a half to keep him in."
Ultimately, the board deferred Hopp's parole until 2025, meaning he will remain behind until at least some time next year.
"It’s not about what we want and it’s not about what he wants. It’s about what justice should be, and there are sentences that carry along with crimes, and for this felony, he ended up plea bargaining down to two to nine years, he got five, and we think five is sufficient and we believe that should be carried out," Steward said. "That’s what the law says."
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