Frank Shelley doesn’t suffer fools. A former Marine, Shelley is an unapologetic straight-talker and confirmed regular guy. He lives in Lakewood, works as a field engineer for a copying company and pretty much minds his own business.
If there’s anything he won’t abide, though, it’s abuse of power. He hates that. Which is why he’s obsessed with Denver police Detective Michael Ryan.
He thinks Ryan is getting the shaft.
The whole thing started Aug. 29.
Shelley was driving home on U.S. 285 when he came up behind two vehicles: a light-colored Volkswagen in the left lane and a black pickup on the right.
“Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of an object lofted from the VW, hitting the truck,” he said. “There was water or a drink or a Coke or something running down the side of the pickup, and now I was kind of watching the truck, because if somebody did that to me, I’d be so angry, I’d be screaming at him.”
The driver of the pickup dropped back and cleared his windshield, Shelley said. He watched him carefully.
“Now, I wanted to see who did this,” he said. “I suspected it was teenage kids or something.” So Shelley pulled up alongside the VW and was surprised to see an older woman behind the wheel. A younger woman was in the passenger seat and a child in back. He looked at them, put his arm out the window and shook his finger at them disapprovingly.
Later that day he got a call from a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy who said he was investigating a road-rage incident and that the people in the VW said he had pointed a gun at them. They also said the younger woman was driving, but that’s another story.
“I gave him a statement,” he said. “I told him my guns were at home, that maybe they thought my finger was a gun, and I didn’t think any more about it.”
Weeks later he saw a newspaper story that Ryan, the driver of the pickup, had been accused of pointing a gun at the people in the VW and had been charged with felony menacing. “I’m thinking, ‘There’s something wrong here,”‘ Shelley said.
He called the Denver Police Department to tell internal affairs that he was there and never saw a gun.
DPD told him to call Jeffco.
He called the Jeffco Sheriff’s Office and left a message that he was an eyewitness.
Nobody returned his call.
He called again. Still nothing.
Then he called the district attorney’s office. “The guy seemed very personable,” he said. “He said an investigator would call me.”
When the investigator finally called, Shelley said, he was dismissive. “The first thing he said to me is ‘Officer Ryan has confessed.’ I’m going, ‘What?’
“I told him, ‘I don’t give a damn what he confessed to, I was there and he didn’t point a gun at anybody. I was the one accused of pointing a weapon.”‘
The police reports quote Ryan denying that he pointed or waved a gun. He said he felt threatened, so as he drove he removed his duty gun from its holster and set it on the seat next to him.
Shelley said that’s a far cry from pointing a gun. “As a former military person, I would recognize felony menacing if I saw it. I was watching, and I never saw it.
“I’m not going to keep quiet about this,” he said.
A spokeswoman for the Jeffco DA said that despite Shelley’s observations, there is probable cause and a reasonable expectation of a conviction in the case.
Ryan declined to comment. He has been suspended without pay since the incident nearly four months ago.
His Denver police colleague Sgt. Vince Lombardi said the case is an injustice.
“Mike Ryan doesn’t cowboy.” In fact, the sergeant said he’s such a good cop, “even the criminals respect him.”
No kidding.
“All he ever wanted to be is a cop,” Lombardi said. “This is extremely traumatic for him. He’s really depressed. ”
Shelley said he doesn’t know Ryan. “I’ve never met the guy, never even spoken to him. It doesn’t matter, though.
“Something’s wrong here,” he said. “Something’s wrong, and I’m not going to let it go.”
Diane Carman’s column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at 303-820-1489 or dcarman@denverpost.com.
