Loveland Police Department officers Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali as well as community service officer Tyler Blackett have resigned from the police department.
Chief Bob Ticer held a press conference Friday at the department in central Loveland to provide this update as well as some information on the investigations.
Hopp, Jalali and Blackett have become the focus of several investigations in connection with the arrest in 2020 of Karen Garner, a 73-year-old woman with dementia, after an excessive use of force lawsuit filed on Garner’s behalf by attorney Sarah Schielke. Alongside these three, Sgt. Phil Metzler, the on-scene officer, and Sgt. Antolina Hill have all been named in the lawsuit.
With the three former officers gone, Ticer said Metzler, who was at the scene of the arrest and is named in the lawsuit, remains on administrative leave and Hill, who was added to the suit with Blackett, remains on her current duties.
Since the original civil rights suit against the LPD was filed April 14 that included footage of Garner’s arrest, more information and video footage has surfaced of Hopp, Jalali and Blackett reviewing the body-camera footage from the arrest. Throughout the newly released footage, the three officers can be seen laughing and fist-bumping while reviewing and discussing the arrest.
Ticer said the footage of the three former officers laughing over the body-camera footage is “not the Loveland Police Department. The Loveland Police Department is comprised of men and women that are out there taking calls for service right now … and honoring our community and serving with integrity and value,” he said. “That is who the Loveland Police Department is.”
He also said he shares the community’s concerns after reviewing the originally released body-camera footage.
According to Ticer, after the Critical Incident Response Team protocol investigation, led by the Larimer County District Attorney’s Office, has been completed, an internal investigation will be led by Loveland’s human resources department as well as a third, independent party.
“We believe that is the right thing to do, have an outside investigator look at this case,” he said during the conference.
The CIRT investigation is being led by the DA and run by the Fort Collins Police Services. Actions of all officers in connection with the arrest are subject to a criminal investigation through the CIRT protocol.
In a release from Garner’s attorney and her family, Schielke said it is “long overdue that these officers became unemployed,” but pointed out frustration that Metzler and Hill are still employed.
“This family deserves swift justice,” Schielke said in the release. “And any investigations pursued ought to be done by parties outside of Larimer County. Not by Loveland’s ‘partner’ agencies and Loveland’s insurance provider.”
Schielke said that what is most concerning, however, is Ticer himself. She said that while Ticer said what happened “isn’t the Loveland Police Department,” that “he is wrong.”
“This is the Loveland Police Department. And it is his Loveland Police Department,” she wrote. “He is responsible for what happens in it. And incredibly, despite presiding over the hiring, training and culture that led to this atrocity against Karen Garner, he and the City of Loveland believe he ought to still continue running it.”
Schielke said with Ticer not resigning in the face of this incident and city manager Steve Adams’ “decision” not to remove him “proves that LPD’s leadership and toxic culture problems are just as bad as we suspected when we saw the very first video, if not worse.
“And they go all the way through Ticer, to the very top,” Schielke wrote. “Because while the world looks on, aghast, and waiting — the City leaves the old guard in place. And it does nothing.”
Garner’s family also provided a statement on the news in the release sent out by Schielke and the Life and Liberty Law Office.
The statement from the family said Ticer’s speech Friday was “singularly endeavoring to protect only himself and the reputation of the LPD,” claiming he repeatedly dodged questions regarding the Garner family.
“He made no reference to Karen personally,” the family wrote. “And just like on June 26, 2020, the inhumane treatment of our mother was ignored and his continued support of the department was the focus. He said that our mother’s case has ‘hurt him personally.’ It is clear that the only thing that has ‘hurt him personally’ has been the attention this case has brought to his department. Not what happened to our mother. We are disappointed.”
