{"id":65937,"date":"2019-06-15T20:39:54","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T02:39:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jury-finds-durango-man-not-guilty-of-assaulting-officer\/"},"modified":"2019-06-16T02:39:54","modified_gmt":"2019-06-16T02:39:54","slug":"jury-finds-durango-man-not-guilty-of-assaulting-officer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jury-finds-durango-man-not-guilty-of-assaulting-officer\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds Durango man not guilty of assaulting officer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A 12-person jury found Butch Lawrence not guilty of assaulting a police officer.<\/span>Durango Herald file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A jury found a Durango man not guilty this week of assaulting an officer in a case that was initially dismissed because officers \u201clacked reasonable suspicion\u201d to arrest him, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Durango resident Butch Lawrence contested second- and third-degree assault charges alleging that on May 18, 2018, he assaulted Durango Police Department officer Connor Lowande after avoiding contact with police. He hit Lowande in the back of his head, \u201cwhich was making him nauseous,\u201d according to arrest documents filed with the court May 21, 2018.<\/p>\n

But Lawrence told The Durango Herald<\/em> on Wednesday he mistook the officers as possible assailants, ran because he feared for his life and was never aggressive toward officers.<\/p>\n

Assistant District Attorney David Ottman charged Lawrence with second-degree assault on May 24, 2018, a Class 4 felony punishable by two to six years in prison.<\/p>\n

Deputy District Attorney Robert Barlow filed a motion Sept. 5, 2018, asking District Court Judge Suzanne Carlson to dismiss the second-degree assault charge, citing inappropriate justification for the arrest that led to Lowande\u2019s injury. Specifically, Barlow quoted a Colorado Supreme Court opinion that found, \u201cAn individual\u2019s attempt to avoid coming in contact with a police officer does not, without more, justify an investigative detention of the individual,\u201d according to the motion.<\/p>\n

Carlson granted the request to dismiss the case Sept. 11, 2018. But Barlow on Sept. 12 filed a another second-degree assault charge with identical allegations to those dismissed just a day before. Barlow added a third-degree assault charge Jan. 15, a Class 1 misdemeanor punishable by six to 18 months in jail.<\/p>\n

A two-day trial before a 12-person jury ended Tuesday with 2\u00bd hours of deliberation and not-guilty verdicts.<\/p>\n

Tears streamed down Lawrence\u2019s face after the verdict, and his family gathered around him in a group hug.<\/p>\n

\u201cMen aren\u2019t supposed to cry or whatever \u2013 I cried, but I don\u2019t feel bad about it, I normally don\u2019t,\u201d Lawrence said. \u201cI was planning this whole time to not have a life and not to have one when I get out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lawrence said he couldn\u2019t sleep the night after the jury came to a verdict. For a year, he feared being sentenced to prison for a crime he didn\u2019t commit. He worried about how his case would affect his children, and the uncertainty made him re-evaluate what\u2019s important to him.<\/p>\n

District Attorney Christian Champagne said prosecutors dismissed the case but upon further review, \u201crecognized that it was a righteous case\u201d and refiled charges. There was a misunderstanding of \u201chow the contact went down,\u201d said Durango Police Chief Bob Brammer.<\/p>\n

Officers involved in Lawrence\u2019s arrest could not have known that he hadn\u2019t committed a crime, and they had probable cause to detain him, Brammer said.<\/p>\n

What happened<\/div>\n

Officers contacted Lawrence about 11:20 p.m. May 18, 2018, after reportedly seeing him in a parking lot in the 1200 block of Florida Road with a hooded sweatshirt peeking into car windows, according to arresting documents. Patrol officer Nathan Kearney noted in his affidavit that Lawrence was in a high-crime area that included \u201ccriminal acts involving vehicles\u201d in the parking lot.<\/p>\n

Lawrence said he\u2019d been at the apartment complex to talk with an ex-girlfriend and to retrieve his cowboy hat.<\/p>\n

Kearney got out of his patrol vehicle and watched a man he later identified as Lawrence enter an apartment building and reappear with a cowboy hat. Kearney reported seeing grass and dirt on the man\u2019s sweatshirt before he left the parking lot, according to arresting documents.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Lawrence) appeared very nervous when he walked past my empty patrol vehicle,\u201d Kearney wrote.<\/p>\n

Kearney got in his patrol vehicle, stopped on Florida Road where Lawrence was walking westbound and tried to make contact, according to arresting documents. The officer asked Lawrence to stop, but he kept walking, Kearney wrote.<\/p>\n

He tried a second time to get Lawrence to stop and explain his \u201csuspicious behavior,\u201d Kearney wrote. Again, Lawrence didn\u2019t stop, muttering something about not wanting to talk with the officer while continuing a conversation on a telephone, Kearney wrote.<\/p>\n

Lawrence said he\u2019d been on the phone with his ex-girlfriend, and he didn\u2019t hear Kearney identify himself as an officer. Lawrence said he hadn\u2019t done anything wrong and, although his gut told him Kearney might have been an officer, he felt no reason to stop.<\/p>\n

Kearney tried a third time to stop Lawrence, claiming he \u201chad reasonable suspicion to require him to talk with me about his actions,\u201d he wrote. Lawrence ran and hid in a bush for three to five minutes and ran when officers found him, according to police.<\/p>\n

Kearney grabbed Lawrence\u2019s hood and, with the help of officer Lowande, took him to the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cLawrence continued to struggle and resist and began swinging his arms,\u201d Kearney wrote. It\u2019s during this altercation that law enforcement allege Lawrence hit Lowande. Lawrence said Wednesday officers beat him with flashlights, batons and knees.<\/p>\n

Officers tried to arrest Lawrence near a steep ledge near the 1200 block of Florida Road, and at one point, began to fall, according to police. Lawrence said he\u2019d freed himself from police and had contemplated jumping the 12 feet to what he saw as safety.<\/p>\n

An officer hit Lawrence with a baton to \u201cgain compliance,\u201d Kearney wrote, then grabbed him by the hair and pulled him off the ledge. Lawrence escaped again and was apprehended by a La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s deputy.<\/p>\n

\u201cOfficer Lowande could not walk down the hill on his own after being hit in the head and had to be assisted by another officer,\u201d Kearney wrote.<\/p>\n

Chief Brammer said he stands behind the decisions and actions of the officers. Officers had probable cause to detain Lawrence and the District Attorney\u2019s Office did its due diligence, Brammer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a jury of his peers found him innocent, and the DA was not able to prove that he was guilty, then our system worked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lawrence said he \u201ctook a hell of a financial hit\u201d defending himself in court, but he\u2019s a better person for what happened. He hadn\u2019t planned on a not-guilty verdict, so he\u2019s unsure what to do next, Lawrence said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI basically committed suicide thinking that somebody was going to kill me,\u201d Lawrence said of his actions at the time of his arrest. \u201cNow, I have to figure out how to live, even if I can stay in this town.\u201d<\/p>\n

bhauff@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Prosecutors dismissed assault charge, then filed identical allegation<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[133,1065,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-65937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-courts","tag-durango-police-department","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65937","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=65937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65937\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65937"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=65937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}