News & Commentary

An investigation by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado (ACLU) revealed that the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department (GCSD) has referred several victims of domestic violence to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, resulting in those individuals being placed in deportation proceedings because they chose to report acts of domestic violence to law enforcement.

Virginia Mancinas Urtusuastegui was in a horribly abusive relationship. One day, Ms.Urtusuastegui's partner tried to strangle her. As a victim of a domestic violence crime, she called the Garfield County Sheriff's Department (GCSD) for help. What happened next, baffles all those who believe that women who are the victims of such abuse should be protected. Instead of receiving protection from the GCSD, Ms.Urtusuastegui was arrested. Even though the charges were dropped in short order, the GCSD had already reported her to Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE), which almost immediately began deportation hearings.

Leaders in the ACLU immigration rights movement -- joined by elected officials, faith leaders and Denver activists -- will join at the Denver City County Building May 10 to welcome the ACLU "Estamos Unidos" bus tour and call attention to unjust anti-immigrant policy.

The ACLU of Colorado today sent a letter to the Denver City Council, opposing the proposed city-wide ordinance to prohibit unauthorized camping, calling it an unconstitutional and mean-spirited attempt to criminalize homelessness.

Members of the Denver City Council will debate a proposal that would make it illegal, and impose fines or jail time, for sleeping outside on public property anywhere in the city.

In an April 12, 2012 news release, the ACLU of Colorado announced it has submitted a detailed complaint to Denver Police Chief Robert White and the Denver Office of the Independent Monitor today, requesting a formal investigation of unreasonable and abusive use of force and other misconduct in policing Occupy Denver demonstrations at Civic Center Park last fall. The complaint calls for Chief White to ban on the use of pepper ball guns for crowd control.Focused primarily on events that occurred October 29, 2011, the complaint traces police overreaction to a misguided and irresponsible decision to forcibly enforce a minor ordinance that prohibits erecting tents in city parks. The ACLU asserts that Denver police violated their own crowd control policies (as well as common sense) by needlessly antagonizing a large crowd of mostly peaceful demonstrators, prompting a confrontation that escalated in intensity and severity.In the ensuing confrontation – documented in the ACLU complaint with photographs, video, and excerpts from police reports – Denver police responded with abusive use of batons (knocking nonviolent demonstrators to the ground); needless destruction of personal property; and the unjustifiably hazardous shooting of pepper ball guns into crowds.“Shooting pepper balls into a crowd of demonstrators, especially a crowd of moving people, is reckless and extremely dangerous,” explained Mark Silverstein, ACLU Legal Director. “The Boston police learned this several years ago, when a police pepper ball hit a bystander in the eye and killed her. We call on Chief White to forbid police from firing these dangerous weapons into crowds of persons who are exercising their First Amendment rights.”A copy of the ACLU’s complaint will also go to the United States Department of Justice, which is still considering the ACLU’s call —made last year in a detailed 26-page letter -- for a federal investigation of the Denver Police Department’s pattern of civil rights violations. Denver has resisted that call, maintaining that its police department can adequately investigate allegations of police misconduct.

As witnessed by a Westword item from October, Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver's business and outreach communities have spent months discussing and debating a push to ban overnight camping on public property. Now that the issue is reportedly scheduled to be addressed in a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday, the topic is sparking criticism from other quarters.

     Under pressure from the ACLU of Colorado and local community activist groups, the Roaring Fork School Board unanimously voted to enter into an agreement urging the police departments of the Roaring Fork Valley to exercise “extraordinary discretion” before assigning a school resource officer (SRO) to additional police work that may implicate the immigration status of a student’s family. The agreement recognizes that assigning SROs to law enforcement work in which “a student’s family immigration status may come into question . . . may diminish the necessary trust the SROs have worked so long to build with the student and family.”

On Monday, the 2012 Martin Luther King Day Holiday, the ACLU Race To Justice Coalition called on Denver City Council to demand a start to the process of bringing a new Independent Monitor to the city..