Chris Perez
Audio By Carbonatix
When Victoria Oliver became a Denver police officer, her main goal was to help people. “It’s what we’re supposed to do,” she says while speaking with Westword at a Citizens Appreciate Police awards ceremony on Wednesday, September 13.
But the Denver native and 27-year veteran of the Denver Police Department has done much more than that.
In February, Oliver spent $255 of her own money on a plane ticket out of Colorado for a 23-year-old domestic violence victim who had been getting battered and verbally abused for a period of three weeks – to the point where she had a miscarriage.
“Victoria, you’re my angel,” the woman later wrote in a text message to the officer. “I love you.”
Oliver, who was honored at the ceremony with a CAP award for her actions, had been tasked with picking up the victim from a hotel and taking her to Denver International Airport after another officer made contact with her at DIA a day earlier.
“Detective Cox was working off duty on a curb, and [the victim] jumped out of a car and advised what was going on,” Oliver recalls. “She was in the car with [her boyfriend]…there was a big fight. And when she saw Detective Cox, she just jumped out and said, ‘Help!'”
According to Oliver, Cox works in the DPD’s domestic violence unit and was able to get the victim a hotel for the night, as the woman had scheduled a flight for the next day. When Oliver arrived at the hotel to pick up the woman the following day, she was with two people who said they were her friends and in good spirits.
“You could tell she was a little anxious, but I at least hope myself and my partner set her at ease,” Oliver says. “We got to the airport, and we went to Frontier so that she could get her ticket. And they had no record of it.” But that wasn’t the only hiccup.
“We were trying to get that situated, and we were trying to reach the [victim advocate]. We were unable to do it, and you could see the victim was becoming very agitated, very fearful of male presence. And she was just shaking and just saying, ‘Okay, I’ve got to get out of here. I’ve got to get out of here.'”
That’s when Oliver took matters into her own hands.
“I took it upon myself and I said, ‘I’m just going to get her ticket,'” she says. “I said, ‘Let’s not worry. I want to get her back to the hotel.’ And I paid for her ticket, and I took her back to her hotel. Once we got back there, she was still kind of anxious. I gave her some money so she could get some food and just told her, ‘Get some rest. You’ll be flying back to Chicago tomorrow, and we’ll be fine.'”
The next day, Oliver responded back to work and got back to her regular assignments – with the first being an escort handed down by her sergeant. The person: her domestic violence victim from DIA.
“I had no idea it was her,” Oliver says. “I respond to the terminal, and she jumps out the car and she goes, ‘Victoria!’ And her friend, she’s like, ‘That’s her! That’s the officer that helped!’ And we just hugged, and we just were at each other’s side for the rest of the day.”
Oliver not only got the victim through TSA security, but she also managed to get the two “friends” who were with her through as well. It turns out that those friends were actually paramedics who had previously treated and helped the woman.
“They were just incredible,” Oliver says. “They didn’t want their names out there because they called in sick to help her. And so I got all of us through TSA security – special passes for the two friends because they weren’t flying – and then we got to the Frontier gate. I talked to Frontier. I said, ‘Hey, I have a serious situation going on here. If we can, let’s let her get on first.’ And we were able to go onto the plane with her and say our goodbyes. And as we were saying our goodbyes, other people were coming on, and we were all crying.”
Over the span of those two days, Oliver says the woman opened up to her. “She had been through such an ordeal, and just listening to her life story, it was just – she needed this, and she didn’t need any more pushback from what was going on,” Oliver explains. “And I was just honored and humbled to be a part of all of that.”
When it comes to domestic violence cases, many victims are in need of a support system to get away from the person hurting them. What can make things hard, though, is when a person is afraid of going to the authorities or feels a certain way about them. In this case, Oliver said the woman “had some opinions about police” that they talked about in depth.
“I’m like, ‘Not all cops [are bad],'” Oliver recalls telling her. “We had those kinds of conversations. But she was such a sweet young lady who was just a victim of circumstances throughout her life. She was such a sweetheart.”
Before getting on her flight to Illinois, where she’s originally from, the victim told Oliver one last thing: “I love you. And thank you.” It was the last time they saw each other.
Asked about what she would say to the woman if Oliver was to ever see her again, she tells Westword: “Everything I do is for you, whether it’s to keep you safe, whether it’s to inspire you, whether it’s your plan. ‘Are you going to go back to school?’ Whatever it is, know you have somebody here. If you want me as a mentor, I’ll be your mentor. If you just want me as your guardian angel, I’ll be your guardian angel. But I’m here, and I don’t want you to ever forget that.”
Oliver’s plane ticket purchase wasn’t her first big act of monetary kindness. “It’s not the first time I’ve done it,” she says. “And it probably won’t be the last.”
She helped another domestic violence victim who was stranded at the airport once and needing assistance. “I got her a bus ticket,” she says. “She was going to Weld County. I didn’t tell my command.”
Several other officers received CAP awards at the ceremony; Oliver says that people these days often form opinions about police without actually ever seeing the work they do or their acts of kindness in action. At the end of the day, cops are human beings, too.
“That’s it, that’s absolutely it,” Oliver adds. “There are so many people that played a part. Marie Francois – she was a supervisor at TSA – she was so gracious with the young lady. From her to the two paramedics, who were both females, to Detective Cox being there at the right time, to myself, I have to say, I just love the way all the women came together, like Game of Thrones, and all just stepped up like badasses.”
Having a support system is something that Oliver has benefited from her entire life, she says, with her family behind her every step of the way – despite a little hesitation at first.
“My mother, when I became a cop, she was very proud of it,” Oliver says. “My father, he was a little apprehensive. I remember the [first] day I was getting dressed, I was living with him while my house was being built. And he walked in – I had my T-shirt on and was putting my vest on – and he said that’s when he realized, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is my daughter.’ My brother, I have a twin brother, I invited him for a ride-along and he said, ‘You know, Vic, I know you carry a gun, but if somebody comes at you, I’m your brother. I got to take care of it.'”
Oliver’s biggest supporter and protector was her sister – Suzanne Renee – who passed away. But in the same way that she served as a guardian angel for the DV victim, Oliver believes Suzanne was with her those days at the airport, helping her navigate the ordeal.
“She was there with me,” concludes the celebrated DPD officer. “She was my guardian angel.”
