Isabel Martinez grew fearful when officers said they could take her children away if she didn’t tell them about her former boyfriend, accused of shooting two Denver detectives, killing one of them.
Denver police finally left her Los Angeles home that day, but not without leaving a bad impression.
While some say the tactics used by the officers are wrong and intimidating, police legally have quite a lot of latitude in expressing their authority during efforts to find suspects and get information.
Raul Gomez-Garcia, accused of killing Detective Donald “Donnie” Young and wounding Detective John “Jack” Bishop while they were working security at a party on May 8, was arrested June 4 in Mexico.
The arrests followed weeks of tracking him from Denver to Los Angeles and then to Mexico. All along the way, officers questioned his family and friends.
“When police really want to find someone, they are working very diligently and are under a lot of pressure to locate the person, they may do any number of things that normally they wouldn’t pursue,” said Joe Sandoval, a criminal justice professor at Metropolitan State College of Denver.
“If the police tell someone ‘look if you don’t cooperate with us we are going to turn you over to whomever,’ they can … and say they were just telling what they could lawfully do.”
Those questioned by Denver police allege the officers have threatened and intimidated them by calling immigration officials or promising to disrupt lives. These complaints are common in minority communities where legal status may be questionable and familiarity with the law is lacking, Sandoval said.
“Whether it’s ethical or not is another question,” he said. “Some of us would say it’s clearly unethical if they lie.”
In Denver, officers took Sandra Rivas, Gomez-Garcia’s current girlfriend and mother of his infant daughter, downtown for questioning after the shooting. The 18-year-old didn’t return home for more than seven hours. She was tired and unhappy, her mother, Rosalba Rivas, said at the time.
Experts say there are few rules for what officers can say to a suspect or someone they want to question for information.
Denver police spokeswoman Virginia Lopez says officers don’t try to intimidate.
“Legally we can’t go out and say whatever we want to get what we want,” she said. “There are excellent interview techniques used by our investigators, that is their game there.”
Police officers have the authority to call other agencies, including human services and immigration officials, she said.
“We could call if someone is here illegally to notify immigration authorities,” Lopez said. “To use it as a threat, I personally wouldn’t think that would happen. It’s a matter of fact, it’s the law.”
Still, causing fear of harm could be a civil rights violation, said David Kairys, constitutional law professor at Temple University in Philadelphia.
Even so, it’s difficult to prove, Sandoval said.
Clearly, police cannot gratuitously beat someone or withhold water from someone they are interrogating, Sandoval said.
“But normally things don’t happen that way, they are more subtle, more nuanced,” he said. “It’s not a clear-cut question. Some of those are very difficult if not impossible to get at.”
Denver officers turned over some of Gomez-Garcia’s family members to immigration agents after questioning them, said Conrad Hernandez. His brother, Santiago Hernandez, is being detained by immigration officials.
Santiago Hernandez and Gomez-Garcia’s father and teenage sister await deportation hearings.
“It is unfair, he (Santiago) was taken on the pretense that he would be questioned. When they were not satisfied with his answers they turned him over to immigration,” Conrad Hernandez said. “He did not receive his Miranda rights and was informed he had no right to an attorney. … Because a police officer has been murdered they could do anything they want.”
Most people don’t know they can refuse to be questioned by officers or that they can request an attorney be present. Officers are not obliged to tell anyone they have those rights unless they are actually arrested, Kairys said.
“Those lines are very subtle. One can understand when two officers were shot that they want to find out who did it,” he said.
Kairys said it’s the approach that makes the biggest difference in getting information.
“Once police start harassing people like this, nobody is going to come forward,” he said. “It’s possible they could have found him (Gomez-Garcia) if they had approached in a positive way.”
