ACLU Will Defend Teenagers Charged After
Protesting Police Actions at Cinco de Mayo

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 27, 1996

The American Civil Liberties Union announced today that it would provide legal representation to several Latino teenagers who were stopped in their car and cited by Denver police shortly after they left a demonstration on May 7. The demonstrators were critical of the actions police took two days earlier, in the aftermath of the Cinco de Mayo celebration.

"There is evidence that police stopped these young people simply because they took part in a demonstration that criticized the police," said Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. "The First Amendment applies to teenagers as well as adults. It guarantees the right to speak out and criticize public officials, including the police."

Several minors in the car were charged with violating the Denver curfew ordinance. One of them, Alonso Tarango, 16, was also taken into custody and charged with disturbing the peace and resisting arrest.

Denver attorneys Dan Recht and Sandra Goldman will serve as ACLU cooperating attorneys to handle the defense of the teenagers. Recht, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Denver, is President of the Colorado Criminal Defense Bar.

Silverstein said that in writing their report, the police linked the stop of the car to the demonstration. "In explaining the reason for the stop," Silverstein said, "the police report states that one of the young men was shouting 'La Raza' to the crowd during the demonstration. The report labels this 'incitement.' We disagree. Shouting 'La Raza' is not incitement. Shouting 'La Raza' is not suspicious conduct. Shouting 'La Raza' at a demonstration is expression that is protected by the First Amendment. Police have no business stopping young people simply because they have engaged in expression that is protected by the Constitution."

The demonstration took place along Federal Boulevard after a community meeting in which residents aired grievances about the actions of Denver police on Federal Boulevard on the evening of Cinco de Mayo. Press reports described the May 7 demonstration as raucous but peaceful. It broke up early enough so that minors had time to get home before the 11 p.m. curfew.

Recht said that police assaulted Tarango during the stop after he responded to a police officer's question by asking, in Spanish, "Como?" According to Recht, police threw Tarango onto the trunk of the car, forced his arm behind his back and up to his neck, and then choked him and kneed him in the abdomen. Police later took Tarango to the hospital where he was examined for possible injuries from "blunt abdominal trauma."

Tarango recounted these allegations of police misconduct to participants who gathered at a second demonstration on May 8 and again at a public hearing of the Public Safety Review Commission on May 23.

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