DENVER – Protesters used rope and tables to barricade doors shut at a suburban Denver police station and trap officers inside for several hours last summer during racial injustice demonstrations, a detective testified Tuesday during an evidentiary hearing in Colorado where a judge will decide if there’s sufficient proof to move the cases to trial.
The protest that was organized by the Party for Socialism and Liberation began in the evening of July 3 and continued into the early morning of July 4 to bring attention to the 2019 killing of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after being arrested by Aurora police.
Three protesters in court Tuesday – Lillian House, Joel Northam and Whitney Lucero – face decades of prison time for what critics say are trumped-up charges as part of an attack on the Black Lives Matter movement and national protests from last summer.
The charges include engaging in a riot, inciting a riot while giving commands, obstructing government operations and the attempted kidnapping of police officers. Prosecutors say about 600 people surrounded an Aurora police precinct with 18 officers inside, blocking doors with ropes, boards, picnic tables and sandbags for seven hours. They haven’t entered a plea yet in the case.
Adam Frank, Lucero’s defense attorney, argued on behalf of the three defendants that there was no probable cause to continue with the case because of their First Amendment rights.
The prosecution showed photos and videos taken by Aurora police officers outside the precinct that showed makeshift barricades blocking off several streets around the Aurora precinct.
Testifying virtually, Aurora police Detective Andrew Silberman said social media posts referred to the event as an “occupation,” including a Party for Socialism and Liberation video on Facebook of Northam addressing the crowd.
“He was telling them that it was going to be an occupation. He went over the demands of – the reason we’re here is to have these officers fired and we’re going to stay around the station until that happens,” Silberman said.
The prosecution also showed a video from the Party for Socialism and Liberation’s Facebook page of a phone call between House, one of the protest’s organizers, and Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson. In the video, House tells Wilson that the crowd will disperse if she fires the “killer cops” who were involved in McClain’s arrest and received photos of their colleagues imitating a chokehold used on McClain.
The officers in the photos were fired, and their appeals to be reinstated were denied. The officers who received the photos by text remain on the force.
The chief explains that she can’t fire the officers because of the several ingoing investigations.
“It seems like the rules only apply when it’s convenient,” House tells Wilson shortly before hanging up.
McClain died in 2019 after police used a chokehold to arrest him and paramedics injected him with an excessive dose of ketamine. Prosecutors declined to file charges, saying the coroner could not determine exactly what caused the death and that they could not prove the level of force used was unjustified. His case received renewed attention after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in May 2020.
