(This blog post was featured on HuffingtonPost.com December 4)

Following the non-indictment of NYPD Officer Daniel Pantaleo for strangling Eric Garner to death with an illegal choke hold in Staten Island, it is clearer than ever that something is badly broken in our system of justice. Once again, a black man has been killed by a white police officer with impunity, and once again there is no accountability for excessive use of force by those who ought to be protecting our communities, not killing people in our communities.
This isn't just a problem in Ferguson, Missouri or Staten Island, New York. It is a problem across our nation, including here in Denver. Just yesterday, the top headline in the Denver Post featured excessive use of force by local law enforcement. Too often, police use excessive force in arrests, and inmates in jails are killed or badly injured by local deputies. Excessive force complaints have resulted in millions of dollars of judgments or settlements in Denver and surrounding communities, but law enforcement officers are almost never arrested or disciplined for their violent actions.
There are many fine officers who are careful and restrained in their use of force, but as long as the system protects those who cross the line, even in a case where the killing was filmed and the death was ruled by the coroner to be a homicide, public anger and distrust toward law enforcement will only grow. The primary justification given for shielding law enforcement from accountability for use of force is that their jobs are dangerous and they need to be given wide latitude in how to use force to protect themselves. However, a world in which communities hate and mistrust the police because they believe the police hate and mistrust them is surely a world that is more dangerous for law enforcement officers, not less.
There is enormous work to be done to address the problem of excessive use of force, including better screening and training of those entering law enforcement, better efforts to build good community relationships with law enforcement, deeper understanding of the role of conscious or unconscious racial bias in policing, better data on police stops, and proper use of police cameras. But as recent events illustrate, even these measures will not be enough unless there is personal accountability for those officers who disgrace an honorable profession by treating their badge and uniform as a license to maim or kill.
Click here to join the ACLU's call to the U.S. Justice Department to ban racial profiling by police and to require racial bias training against the use of force.

DENVER – Last night, the Denver City Council voted to authorize a $337,250 settlement to compensate three ACLU clients who were the victims of mistaken identity arrests by Denver law enforcement.  The City of Denver previously paid $232,000 in compensation to three additional people named in the same suit.  In each case, the ACLU argued that Denver police deliberately ignored facts that demonstrated that they were arresting or causing the arrest of the wrong person and that Denver Sheriff Department deputies refused to investigate obvious red flags and repeated complaints from plaintiffs and their family that they were locking up the wrong person.

Statement of ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Mark Silverstein

 “The ACLU of Colorado is encouraged that the Denver City Council has now authorized $337,250 to compensate three innocent victims of mistaken ID arrests carried out by Denver law enforcement.

“The mistaken ID arrests were a result of a widespread policy and practice of tolerating egregious mistakes, where a warrant for one person resulted in a different person being arrested.  In the course of discovery in this long-pending lawsuit, the ACLU of Colorado documented more than 500 occasions in a seven-year period in which persons were wrongly arrested and imprisoned in Denver’s jails.   Some persons spent weeks in jail wrongly imprisoned on warrants for others.  Some wound up pleading guilty to crimes they did not commit, in order to secure release for “time served.”

“Arrests carry serious consequences.  Beyond the time spent in jail away from work and family, people who are arrested can lose their jobs and be labeled as criminals in their community.  It’s critically important that when law enforcement chooses to arrest someone, they have firm practices and safeguards in place to ensure that they arrest the right person.

“Since the filing of this suit more than five years ago, the ACLU of Colorado has been working with the City of Denver to develop improved law enforcement policies that will reduce the frequency of mistaken ID arrests, and, when mistakes do happen, that will detect them promptly and remedy them quickly.”

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DENVER – The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project filed a lawsuit yesterday on behalf of Ashley Provino, a Grand Junction woman who was fired from her job, in violation of state and federal anti-discrimination laws, for asserting her right to pump breast milk at work.

Provino, a new mother, requested permission from her employer, Big League Haircuts, to take a short break every four hours in the back room of the hair salon to express breast milk, as is her right under state and federal law.  The company denied Provino’s request and cut her hours dramatically.  When Provino requested to be returned to a full-time schedule with breaks so she could pump breast milk and continue breastfeeding her child, she was fired.

“Colorado law ensures that no mother is forced to choose between breastfeeding her baby and keeping her job,” said ACLU of Colorado Staff Attorney Rebecca T. Wallace.  “Employers should have no say in a mother’s personal family decision of whether to breastfeed her baby.”

Colorado’s Workplace Accommodations for Nursing Mothers Act, passed by the state legislature in 2008, unequivocally recognizes the societal and health benefits of breastfeeding and requires that employers make reasonable accommodations to allow new mothers to express milk at work. The ACLU complaint invokes the 2008 statute, as well as federal laws that require workplace accommodations for nursing mothers and prohibit sex discrimination, pregnancy discrimination and retaliation for protesting such discrimination.

“Discrimination against breastfeeding mothers in the workplace is not only illegal, it is also bad for Colorado families and businesses, because it forces women out of the workplace,” said ACLU of Colorado cooperating attorney Paula Greisen of King Greisen LLP.

Women who breastfeed must pump milk regularly throughout the day to ensure that they will keep lactating. A broad consensus exists among medical and public health experts that breastfeeding is optimal for infants following birth, and that breastfeeding has broad developmental, psychological, social, economic and environmental benefits.

In September 2012, the ACLU of Colorado and the ACLU Women’s Rights Project successfully negotiated a settlement with a Jefferson County charter school on behalf of Heather Burgbacher, a teacher who lost her job after she requested accommodations to express breast milk at work. 

The ACLU of Colorado also worked with DISH Network earlier this year to vastly improve accommodations for nursing mothers at the company’s corporate headquarters in Englewood following complaints from employees that the conditions provided by the company lacked adequate space and privacy.

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