The city of Durango will revisit its code regarding what constitutes a noise violation after a citation issued against a prominent immigration advocatewas dismissed last year.
Enrique Orozco-Perez, co-executive director of Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center, said Durango Police Department ticketed him for using loudspeakers outside City Hall during a special meeting on Oct. 30 where Police Chief Brice Current debriefed City Council about U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement activity and protests in Durango days earlier.
City Attorney Mark Morgan said his office dismissed the case against Orozco-Perez “in the interest of justice.”
“Just because the police write a ticket doesn’t mean that I’m going to prosecute it,” he said.
Chapter 16 of Durango city code lists noise levels permitted in residential, industrial and commercial zones, which range from 50 decibels to 80 decibels depending on the time of day.
Police cited Orozco-Perez for a violation regarding loudspeakers, but no decibel level is noted in that section of code, Morgan said.
The two separate subsections of Chapter 16 did not clearly apply to one another. Morgan said his office dismissed Orozco-Perez’s case because of that ambiguity.
The Durango Herald inquired about the citation. Tom Sluis, city spokesman, consulted with DPD and answered the Herald’s questions.
Orozco-Perez said the noise citation is an attempt by police to suppress his freedom of speech. He – and many other residents – attended the special meeting at City Hall in October to protest what he called the police’s complicity with ICE and police’s failure to intervene in unlawful conduct by ICE and other federal officers.
“It’s a joke what they try to do to suppress the voices who are fighting this disgusting, fascistic regime. And DPD continues to be complicit in it,” he said. “If they think that they can give us noise ordinances because we are raising our voice when our children are disappearing, they’re sadly mistaken.”
What caused a protest outside Durango City Hall
Enrique Orozco-Perez, co-executive director of Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center, said he used a loudspeaker outside City Hall on Oct. 30 during a special meeting to “uplift the voices” of people supporting Fernando Jaramillo-Solano and his 12- and 15-year-old children who were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers early in the morning on Oct. 27 on their way to school.
The family sought asylum from their home country of Colombia in the United States and had lived in Durango for 18 months when they were arrested. Their asylum case was active and pending, according to immigration advocates familiar with their case.
They endured 36 hours in ICE custody at a field office in Durango’s Bodo Industrial Park.
More than 200 protesters gathered outside the field office by midday Oct. 28 demanding the release of Jaramillo-Solano’s children. Durango Police Chief Brice Current said ICE officers denied him a welfare check on the children that morning.
Federal agents, including from Homeland Security Investigations, eventually descended on protesters with pepper-spray and rubber bullets. Current requested the Colorado Bureau of Investigation investigate an incident in which an ICE officer allegedly ripped a woman’s phone from her hand, dragged her across the street and pushed her down a hill.
At a later City Council meeting, Estella Patiño, Jaramillo-Solano’s wife, said an ICE officer inappropriately touched her 12-year-old daughter’s chest when she was in a separate car than her father and brother during the family’s initial arrest.
Many protesters at the special meeting were furious with Current’s recounting of the protests outside the ICE field office, objecting to his statement that the protest turned into a riot and protesters and federal officers alike contributed to the escalation.
The scene outside City Hall was loud as a crowd of protesters booed and yelled while the special meeting inside played over loudspeakers.
The family has since reunited in Colombia, although only briefly. According to immigrant advocates familiar with the matter, the parents are no longer living with their children in the interest of the children’s safety.
He said law enforcement agencies use noise ordinances to suppress people’s voices around the country, and by targeting him – a leader of a prominent immigrants rights group – DPD intended to intimidate others from speaking out.
Orozco-Perez had a contentious confrontation with police and Councilor Kip Koso outside City Hall after the Oct. 30 meeting.
“You guys lost our trust. You guys didn’t do (expletive) for children. Go (expletive) yourselves,” he said to officers after the special meeting.
Immediately after, the crowd outside City Hall started chanting “serve and protect” at officers.
Morgan said Orozco-Perez was “observed using a megaphone to shout profanities at city councilors and police officers” from an “otherwise calm and peaceful group of protesters.”
He said while the megaphone certainly exceeded noise limits, Durango police did not record a decibel level, and his office dismissed the charge against Orozco-Perez.
Orozco-Perez was not cited at the event; rather, he was cited a day or more later.
The city insists it did not attempt to suppress Orozco-Perez’s or anybody else’s First Amendment rights.
“We support everybody’s right to assemble and to (redress) their grievances,” Sluis said. “It’s just we ask that it’s done so in a way that aligns with our local municipal laws. We’re not trying to suppress the free speech of anybody.”
He said noise ordinances protect people who may need to rest before work in the morning, who have babies and children who need sleep and other practical purposes.
“Seriously, that really is the answer. They are not set up as a police state tactic,” he said.
Orozco-Perez and the city itself had speakers outside City Hall.
The city set up speakers to broadcast the special meeting unfolding inside. Sluis said that further muddied the waters in regard to Orozco-Perez’s citation. The city having its own speakers adding to the total noise level outside city hall did not help the case.
Protesters frequently shouted and made noise. Orozco-Perez said some of them had their own speakers, and asked why he was singled out for a citation.
“There’s intentionality there. I don’t think I have to spell it out: scare the brown man who leads the immigrant rights group in town, then everyone else will fall back,” he said.
Sluis said people cited by police are not being targeted for their political beliefs or affiliations – officers have to make judgment calls based on the situation.
“If there is somebody who is the loudest and the most visible that is potentially violating local laws, they are going to be the first person to potentially receive that citation,” he said. “It’s not going to be the quietest person in the background who is just trying to redress their grievances.”
He said the last thing the city wants to do is antagonize an organization such as Compañeros that often partners with the city. Conversely, Orozco-Perez “blatantly antagonizes the elected officials who are trying to help Compañeros,” Sluis said.
Durango-based defense attorney Brian Schowalter referenced Orozco-Perez’s case as an example of how governments might attempt to discourage dissent on Jan. 24 during a civil disobedience workshop held in Durango.
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He discussed other fightable charges such as obstruction, resisting arrest and criminal mischief. When it comes to noise ordinances and exterior loudspeakers, he said people have the right to petition their government.
On criminal trespass – standing in the driveway outside an ICE field office, for example – he said one must know they are trespassing to be trespassed. If nobody tells the person to leave, the person is not trespassing.
cburney@durangoherald.com
Editor’s note: Staff writer Christian Burney has a family member who serves on the board of Comapñeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center.
