Man wins $2.5 million verdict in excessive force lawsuit against Denver police sergeant and city – Denver Gazette

A jury has awarded more than $2.5 million to a man who sued a Denver police sergeant and the city in 2015 when he was shot in the back and hand while he lay facedown with his hands above his head, after getting caught in the crosshairs of a shootout as an unarmed bystander when an acquaintance he had taken a ride from led police on a chase.

Michael Valdez claimed in a federal lawsuit the city failed to adequately train the officers on reasonable use of force during arrests. A jury on Sept. 23 found Denver liable for a failure to train and found that Sgt. Robert Motyka, Jr. used excessive force in violation of Valdez Fourth Amendment rights.

The verdict includes $131,000 in damages against Motyka whom Valdez sued in his individual capacity and $2.4 million against Denver.

Valdez and his attorneys couldnt immediately be reached for comment Monday.

In January 2013 Valdez accepted a ride in a friends pickup truck. Valdez didnt know the friend and his truck were wanted by Denver police for involvement in an incident earlier in the day, according to the lawsuit. A chase ensued during which shots were fired at officers, and Motyka was hit. The truck eventually crashed, and Valdez and another passenger got out of the car a few minutes later and lay on the ground, the lawsuit says.

Valdez was shot in his back and finger as he tried to shield his head from gunshots, the lawsuit claimed.

The lawsuit said Valdez suffered fractures in his back that left bone fragments in his spinal canal and had to have part of a finger on his left hand amputated. The injuries confined Valdez to a wheelchair for more than a year and he regained only partial use of his legs and feet by the time of the lawsuits filing, according to the complaint.

City attorney spokesperson Jacqulin Davis said in a statement the city is reviewing the case to determine next steps. The officer couldnt participate during the first week of the trial because of COVID restrictions, she wrote in an email.

Officer training is taken seriously in Denver, Davis wrote.

An arrest affidavit issued for Valdez at the time said Motyka received treatment at a hospital for his gunshot wound.

The lawsuit claimed prosecutors filed unsubstantiated charges for attempted murder, assault and first-degree murder against Valdez in two separate cases despite the officers knowing Valdez wasnt involved in the incidents. The lawsuit said Valdez remained in jail in agonizing pain for more than two months, unable to post bond, until prosecutors dismissed the charges on March 19, 2013.

At no time on January 16, 2013, did Mr. Valdez possess a firearm, attempt to shoot anyone, or otherwise attempt to cause bodily injury to anyone. Mr. Valdez was simply an innocent bystander who was a captive passenger in the red Dodge truck, said the lawsuit.

The complaint claimed the city has a long-standing culture of tolerating excessive force by police. It pointed to an incident a few years earlier involving Motyka when officers forcefully entered a home without a warrant and assaulted a father and three sons, later realizing the people they actually were after a pair of brothers who reportedly sold drugs and ran a brothel out of the home had recently moved out of the home, The Denver Post reported.

Members of the family were falsely charged with assaulting officers, the lawsuit brought by Valdez said.

Qusair Mohamedbhai, a civil rights attorney and partner at Rathod Mohamedbhai,represented the family in a lawsuit that resulted in a $1.8 million verdict awarded to them in 2014.

He said the jury's finding of Denver's liability in Valdez' case for failure to train stands out to him because it seems to indicate the jurors believed systemic issues within the police department are a bigger problem than the individual officer's conduct.

"When you keep these kinds of officers who have been now tagged multiple times in federal court by juries, the problem might be the officers, or it sure seems like it's the system that allows them to remain," he said.

Motyka received the Denver Police Department's Medal of Honor for his involvement in the chase, The Denver Post reported in 2015.

But the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the trial courts denial of qualified immunityfor Motyka which shields government employees from lawsuits absent a violation of clearly established constitutional rights in 2020.

In its denial of qualified immunity for Motyka, the trial court described the injured officer as very angry as well and very eager to get the occupant who shot him. The scattered bullets and Motykas attitude suggested he started shooting without making any effort to determine whether there was any immediate threat to him or others as the occupants of the cab came out.

Court cases are an important part of establishing and clarifying constitutional rights, and in that way, Mohamedbhai said qualified immunity is a tricky concept because it assumes officers are "walking repositories of case law" who approach situations by "scanning their database brains" to understand when qualified immunity will protect them and make decisions about what they should and shouldn't do.

"That's the absurdity of it," he said.

The jury took less than three hours in Valdez' lawsuit to reach its verdict when the members began deliberating on Sept. 23 after a nine-day trial, courtroom notes indicate.

Valdez originally also sued officers Peter Derrick III, Jeff Motz and Karl Roller, but dropped his claims against them in August 2018. The trial court granted qualified immunity to a fifth officer Valdez brought claims against, John MacDonald.

Colorado Politics reporter Michael Karlik contributed to this report.

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Man wins $2.5 million verdict in excessive force lawsuit against Denver police sergeant and city - Denver Gazette