{"id":46919,"date":"2021-05-06T17:59:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-06T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-law-enforcement-may-be-required-to-undergo-more-training-after-arrest-of-woman-with-dementia-goes-viral\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:36:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:36:03","slug":"colorado-law-enforcement-may-be-required-to-undergo-more-training-after-arrest-of-woman-with-deme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-law-enforcement-may-be-required-to-undergo-more-training-after-arrest-of-woman-with-deme\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado law enforcement may be required to undergo more training after arrest of woman with dementia goes viral"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Loveland
Loveland police officers who arrested a 73-year-old woman with dementia last summer laughed about the arrest when watching body camera video and fist-bumped each other, according to video newly released by the woman\u2019s attorney on Monday.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Colorado lawmakers were already working on a measure this year to ensure law enforcement officers have enough training to properly interact with people who are developmentally delayed or have physical disabilities.<\/p>\n

But in the wake of the violent arrest last year of a 73-year-old woman in Loveland they\u2019ve expanded House Bill 1122 to give police and sheriff\u2019s deputies more tools to identify and respond to people with Alzheimer\u2019s and dementia, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the person not complying out of defiance? Or can they not hear what you\u2019re saying? Are they overwhelmed? The hope is that through better understanding, through better training there\u2019s a checklist that happens before you\u2019re throwing someone to the ground or handcuffing them,\u201d said state Rep. Meg Froelich, a Greenwood Village Democrat.<\/p>\n

Bad outcomes during police interactions with people who have disabilities have been documented across the country. In 2003, for instance, a Denver police officer fatally shot a 15-year-old developmentally delayed teen who was holding a large knife.<\/p>\n

But the arrest of Karen Garner, who has dementia, by Loveland police officers is putting the issue back in the spotlight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were thinking about dementia before Loveland,\u201d said Sen. Chris Kolker, a Centennial Democrat. \u201cThen Loveland hit and obviously made everyone more aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garner was taken into custody in June after she allegedly left a store without paying for about $14 worth of merchandise. During the arrest, Garner ignored an officer\u2019s commands, at which point he grabbed her arm and pushed her to the ground. The incident was captured on video and has since been shared widely on the internet.<\/p>\n

A federal lawsuit filed by Garner says she suffered a dislocated shoulder and did not receive medical care for about six hours.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cGarner\u2019s story is an extreme outcome,\u201d said Coral Cosway, the senior director of public policy and advocacy for the Alzheimer\u2019s Association of Colorado. \u201cBut we hear plenty of stories of difficult interactions with first responders. That\u2019s not uncommon in our community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cosway said first responders don\u2019t know how to recognize dementia and, as a result, may not know how to interact with people suffering from the disease.<\/p>\n

Ali Thompson, who serves on the Colorado Developmental Disabilities Council who also works as a law enforcement officer, said \u201cwe are not equipping our first responders with the tools they need.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople with disabilities are being arrested or having force used against them because of officers\u2019 lack of understanding of disability,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cExamples are numerous and include people who are deaf not hearing police commands and being tased, people with cerebral palsy or in a diabetic emergency not passing roadside maneuvers and being arrested for DUI.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Denver
Denver police ahead of protesters in Denver\u2019s Capitol Hill neighborhood on Saturday, June 6, 2020.<\/span>Jesse Paul\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Thompson said the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board curriculum requires more than 300 hours of academic instruction but only has a handful of references to people with disabilities. All of those references are around crisis situations.<\/p>\n

The bill, which has bipartisan support, would create a 12-member commission to be appointed by the attorney general. The panel would have until Feb. 28, 2022, to recommend a disability-interaction curriculum to the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board.<\/p>\n

The appointees would include two people with a disability, two parents of a child with a disability and two representatives from advocacy organizations. The other members would be a person from a disability community not otherwise represented on the commission, a representative of a statewide organization of current and former peace officers, a representative of a statewide organization of chiefs of police, a representative of a statewide organization of county sheriffs, a member of the POST Board and a member of the POST Board\u2019s curriculum subject matter expert committee.<\/p>\n

House Bill 1122 comes as Democrats at the Colorado Capitol are working to broadly change how law enforcement officers interact with the public in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s murder in Minneapolis and the death of Elijah McClain after being arrested by Aurora police officers in 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile it\u2019s part of our broader (police accountability) discussion, we\u2019ve been really fortunate on this bill that police and law enforcement has been on board since the beginning,\u201d said Froelich, the state representative.<\/p>\n

The measure is supported by the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police.<\/p>\n

\u201cMandating training to improve interactions with people with disabilities, while simultaneously allocating resources, will benefit both officers and the citizens they serve,\u201d Officer Mike Foley with the Fraternal Order of Police said in a written statement. \u201cStandardized mental health training would mitigate critical incidents and allow every citizen with a disability to be heard and respected when encountering police officers. This legislation is an important step in giving all first responders the critical training they need to successfully provide exemplary service that their citizens deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sen. Joann Ginal, D-Fort Collins, and Rep. Colin Larson, R-Littleton, are also spearheading the bill, which is next scheduled to be heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

boost training for police, sheriff\u2019s deputies on interacting with people with disabilities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46920,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,233,28,52],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-46919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-law-enforcement"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87084,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46919\/revisions\/87084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46919"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=46919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}