The Police here in Grand Junction have for a long time been able to do whatever they want with little or no oversight by the community. Skateboarders, Latinos, poor people, and political activists have long known that the police have grudges they settle with force or through the justice system.
Recent arrests and firings of two GJPD officers for beating a woman and raping a woman, Coutrney Crooks and Glenn Coyne, respectively, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Former Police Chief Bill Gardner resigned this fall, because of another case that was successfully kept off the pages of the newspapers. It involved nine GJPD officers beating a woman in her own house, and then charging her with felony assault on an officer, she threatened to sue the PD and an agreement was reached which dropped the lawsuit and the chargers. The victim is still too traumatized by the incident, she just wants to put it behind her, but we as citizens need to know what happened in that incident.
The GJPD is notoriously secretive and non-transparent. Multiple open records request have been denied, or simply ignored. The process for people to make complaints about the department is not open or accessible. No hotline, No form, No advocate outside of the Police Department. To make a complaint you have to go to the station and into a locked corridor and into a locked room and make a complaint to an uniformed officer.
The Police also have a long history of selectively enforcing petty laws against the poor and homeless of this town. Smoking in the Park Tickets are only issued to homeless people. Forty-nine percent of ‘walking-violations’ are issued to homeless people. While houseless people represent maybe two percent of the city’s population.
Latino and Immigrant Rights organizations have long noticed a trend of racial profiling in a way that violates the rights of Latinos, here in the Grand Valley.
This past July, the homeless activist group, Housing First! No More Deaths! exposed two undercover police that had infiltrated their organization, disguised as homeless people. The harassment has continued. At the end of September, GJPD, arrested an organizer for the organization at a public meeting for a petty warrant, in a calculated act of political intimidation to the others at the meeting.
The GJPD, is also trigger happy when it comes to the use of Tasers. Tasing people for noncompliance or while running away, when its intended use was for self-defense short of a firearm. Documents requested relating to the PD’s use of Tasers have been ignored.
Only a public hearings about the GJPD will provide a true picture of how the police are interacting with our community. And only citizen oversight will keep the organization honest and just. Contact these people demand citizen oversight and public hearings.
Contact City Council
(970) 244-1504
tinad@gjcity.org
Contact the Chief of Police
244-3560
jcamper@gjcity.org
Write a Letter to the Editor
Sentinel: letters@gjsentinel.com
Sentinel ‘You Said It:’ yousaidit@gjsentinel.com
FreePress:
http://apps.gjfreepress.com/util...
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Comments
GJPD Over-what?
October 21, 2009 by Anonymous, 4 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 4190
It has been a week or so now that I had been contacted by a DS reporter looking into the allegations of the 12 officers who were on the heels of Chief Gardner's resignation. What is going on with this reports of grossly mis conduct on behalf of our local police department?
spam
October 29, 2009 by Anonymous, 3 weeks 4 days ago
Comment id: 4216
odd spam
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