an open letter to the Denver Mayor and City Council

And anyone else who'd like to read it. I mailed this off to them this evening, after reading about an incident at the DNC.

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Mr. Mayor, and the Denver City Council,

I wanted to write to express my disappointment in the city of this year's Democratic National Convention.

Being a realist, I understand that, wherever there are protests, there will always be police involvement. Officers who do their jobs. Officers who are concerned about the safety and well being of the people they are sworn to protect.

And officers who are only interested in maintaining their definition of order.

As a realist, I also know there are officers who enjoy inflicting pain, as well. Officers who feel superior to ordinary citizens. And officers who believe that their badge gives them a wide threshold for violent behavior that will not result in a loss of their job.

It's individuals like this who get the '10-paid day' vacations of suspension, as a way of appeasing the local government that some action has been taken. It's a band-aid, unfortunately, and in this day and age, those bad apples have no place in what is quickly becoming a police state, rather than a free country.

I've decided to give you a record of numerous instances of some of your officers doing more than protecting and serving. I think it's important that someone share these with you (if they haven't done so already), and demand that more than the norm is done to make sure these officers don't think they can get away with violent behavior against protestors.

It would be easy for me to sight police brutality cases outside of protesting situations, but let's stick to the topic at hand.

Here is an article that details officers surrounding groups of protestors and shooting them with pepper spray, hitting them with batons and also with paint-ball like weapons.

Here's an article on Alicia Forrest, along with the youtube clip, on her getting pushed to the ground by a police officer, and then subsequently arrested for 'interfering with an arrest' which basically means, she pissed off an officer.



Here's an article and video about an ABC news investigator/producer that was, in the end, choked, cuffed, arrested and physically threatened by one of your city's police officers.

Here's a fantastic article about the ACLU that details how Denver's police have violated people's rights in their arresting procedures.

And this is just the surface. I'm sure if you went to youtube, you'd find dozens upon dozens of videos of commentaries and on-the-scene footage of Denver's police doing some pretty terrible things.

Of course, they also don't show the police officers who are just doing their job. That's not news worthy.

As I said, I am a realist, and I know it's not them all. But those officers who went out of their way to cause pain, to arrest people, trumping up charges so that it was 'legal', those officers who weren't concerned with people's safety, as much as they were concerned with having a good story to tell about how they busted some heads... You have got to do something about them.

I do not live in Denver. I was unable to afford the trip to the DNC this year, unfortunately. But had I been there, it's quite possible that I could have been one of those people who were hurt, arrested, or both. And that thought frightens me, because the idea of protesting, especially in this country, is, the majority of the time, a peaceful process, filled with passion and vehemence for corporations and politicians who are not the police.

I'm sorry this had to happen. I'm a Democrat, and I was happy to see the convention in Denver. But everything I've seen and read makes me think that the Denver Police Department decided to either not brief its officers on making sure that safety was the main concern, or these officers didn't care to listen to their superiors.

In this day and age, when every single protestor has a device that can record video, for these officers to just forgo rules of conduct outside on the streets of Denver and act only for themselves, well, that's more than a shame.

That's criminal.

John Painz