See also: $3.25 Million Settlement in Jamal Hunter Suit Latest Blemish on Denver Sheriff's Department
Last week, the Denver City Council voted to give $6 million to the family of Booker, who died in Denver jail -- and while the amount is among the larger ones dispensed in recent years, such settlements are hardly rare. Booker's original lawsuit features a stunning 33 cases of excessive force that resulted in the city ponying up -- so many that it took us two posts to share them all. And while not all of them involved the Denver Sheriff's Department's jail duties, a number of them did. Note the $7 million settlement over the jail death of Emily Rae Rice and $3.25 million to Jamal Hunter, whose injuries included scalded genitals.For more information about the cases detailed in the Booker complaint, click here and here.
Such settlements are presumably targets of inquiry by the auditor's office, which is expected to report on the jail operations by March 2015. But an e-mail string obtained by 7News shows that when asked for data on open Internal Affairs cases, a sheriff's department rep replied, "We have also told you from the outset that we will not be providing information on open Internal Affairs cases and therefore, we will not be creating the report you requested below."
Gallagher responded by taking the dispute public in his letter to Hancock. In it, he maintains that the refusal "is not only a violation of the city charter and the Denver Revised Municipal Code, but flies in the face of your commitment to have all your agencies cooperate with the Auditor's Office as we conduct our audits."
The letter adds: "The citizens of Denver deserve and expect to have an objective, unbiased, independent review of issues in the Sheriff's Department that may have led to some of the cases of abuse that have been seen over the last few years."
Denver City Attorney Scott Martinez is now in a position of middleman between the warring parties. His statement to 7News reads:We take the Auditor's function very seriously and share his office's commitment to transparency and responsible government. That's why we have dedicated considerable time and energy to gathering the large amount of information the Auditor's Office has requested. However, there are often legitimate legal reasons that prevent records from being provided to the Auditor's Office. As with any disagreement between the Auditor's Office and a city department, my office will be reviewing these specific documents and making a legal determination on whether they can and must be disclosed.Here's a 7News report, followed by Gallagher's letter to Hancock.
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