Audio By Carbonatix
Nathan Dunlap’s brother-in-law had a plan. After accusing the Aurora police of harassing him and his wife, Darius Ashlock claimed he had a tape of a supposedly incriminating phone conversation with Deputy Chief Mike Stiers. During a subsequent private meeting with Police Chief Verne St. Vincent, however, Ashlock refused to produce a tape. He explained later that he wanted to “trap” St. Vincent into supporting Stiers, “to pull his neck out a little further, a little further, and when the hatchet blade comes down, it comes down right at the shoulder blades.”
It was a chilling metaphor considering that at the time, Dunlap was on trial for the infamous murders of four people in December 1993 at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora.
This was only part of the bizarre drama Dunlap’s family and police acted out while Dunlap, a 21-year-old black man, was being convicted of murder. And it was another example of the racial tinge of the case. Prosecutors argued that “racial hatred” and revenge were part of Dunlap’s motivation for shooting to death four whites at the restaurant he had formerly worked at.
The murders were so notorious that the trial was moved from Arapahoe County to Colorado Springs. Dunlap’s mother, Carol, had fled to Memphis in the summer of 1994; the family said it was because of the glare of publicity. Meanwhile, Nathan’s sister, Adinea, and her husband, Darius Ashlock, moved from Aurora to Denver to escape what they said was harassment by police. The Ashlocks claim that the harassment was part of a pattern of racism in the mostly white suburb.
The February 8 meeting between St. Vincent and the Ashlocks, designed to be a private meeting but–unbeknownst to city officials–attended by a Westword reporter, featured tirades from Darius Ashlock, tears from Adinea and testiness from St. Vincent.
During the meeting, the Ashlocks contended that Stiers had told them to “get out of Aurora.” Darius complained that the phone conversation he’d had with Stiers smacked of racism, and that police had even hounded him out of his job as a nurse at a state Department of Corrections jail-intake facility. Adinea said that she was afraid to go into Aurora “after dark”; Darius vowed to sue the city for harassment.
Stiers, who was not at the meeting, acknowledges having a conversation with the Ashlocks after they called the department. But he denies harassing them or telling them to leave the city. “If they did tape it, why all the smoke and mirrors?” Stiers says. “Take it to the media, show that Chief Stiers is a liar.”
He says he recalls telling Adinea Ashlock: “You have options to relocate and go where people don’t know the name Dunlap from the name Smith. Or use the name Ashlock if you’re looking for a job.” Stiers says Adinea “didn’t respond negatively” at the time. Looking back on the phone call, Stiers says, “we had no issue here. Why would they make that statement? What would be the reason to tell them to get out of town? They construed the option her mother took, and took that as ‘Get out of Aurora.'”
The huge suburb is about 13 percent black, but only 4 percent of its police force is black. And there have been several serious racial incidents in the city. But were the Ashlocks harassed? The Aurora chapter of the NAACP investigated and found “that the charges are unsubtantiated.”
Nick Walker, a member of Citizens Concerned About Minorities in Aurora, attended the meeting with fellow activist Hayes Smith to help mediate between the Ashlocks and the white Aurora officials. Afterwards, Walker said, “I don’t want to call the brother a liar, but by the same token I don’t see enough evidence.” A black Aurora police officer who requested anonymity says the department “has got people capable of” the harassment alleged by the Ashlocks, but he doesn’t think it happened. “He’s looking for a payday,” the officer says of Darius Ashlock. “Everyone thinks the police have deep pockets.”
Ashlock replies: “For the officer to make the comment, fuck him. He’s a peon; he’s a wart. Peons only know what the boss tells them. I just want to work and be left alone. I don’t need Mike Stiers’s money.”
During the meeting, it was unclear what Ashlock wanted. At one point, Nick Walker, trying to suggest some compromise, asked Ashlock, “What outcome would you be satisfied with? Shoot for the stars, then we’ll ask them and see what they can do.”
Ashlock looked across the table at Deputy City Manager Nancy Freed and said, “I want your job.” Then he looked at the police chief and said, “And your job.” Referring to Stiers, Ashlock added, “And his job. That’s what I want. You don’t want to hear what I want. Y’all think I’m crazy.”
Later in the meeting, Ashlock said, perhaps in jest, that what he really wanted was a job on the police force.
“We need to get you to sign up,” Freed replied, and St. Vincent added, “Apply to the civil service commission.”
“I already applied to the civil service commission,” Ashlock replied, turning cool. “Just another run around the loop.”
Tempers flared again, and Ashlock reversed field. “I was making more money than you’d ever pay a cop,” he told St. Vincent.
“I guess you don’t really want the job, then,” St. Vincent retorted.
During the acrimonious session, also witnessed by the Ashlocks’ three small children sitting in the back of the room, the city officials suggested that Ashlock and Stiers take polygraph tests. Darius Ashlock agreed. Moments later, however, he changed his mind.
Adinea Ashlock, meanwhile, fought back tears. She told the city officials that she and her husband live in fear, can’t sleep at night and have “even been on the verge of separation.”
“We can’t call the police to protect us, because they’re harassing us,” she said between sobs. Looking first at Freed and then St. Vincent, she said, “Sorry this isn’t serious to you–or you. This is serious to us. I don’t even come into Aurora anymore.”
“No one says this is not serious,” Freed replied. “Our interest as a city wouldn’t be for you to leave the area.”
Walker jumped in to add that “what we have to go on is that there’s a history of community relations not being the best.” Last summer in Aurora, for instance, a scuffle between two white cops and a twenty-year-old black man outside the Heritage United Church of Christ escalated to a confrontation between more than a dozen cops and several black churchgoers, one of whom was later arrested. A month later, near the same church, an undercover cop accidentally shot and killed black teenager Preston Hill during a drug bust.
St. Vincent bristled, saying, “I challenge you to find somebody who’s tried harder to bridge the gap.”
As the meeting ended, Darius Ashlock proclaimed himself “unsatisfied” and added, “I’m not a complacent man. I’d rather die doing something than letting them run over me.”
Late last week, as Nathan Dunlap’s case headed toward closing arguments, Ashlock announced a rally against the police, and St. Vincent requested another meeting. This time, the press was firmly locked out.
“This may surprise you,” St. Vincent says, “but we sat in there and not once did we talk about what Mike Stiers said. We talked about bigger issues, the relationship with the police department and the community.”
Darius Ashlock, however, says he still plans to sue the police and the city.
