Aurora – A security video shown in court Thursday shows a woman and her teenage daughter being roughly forced to the ground and handcuffed after an incident with an off-duty Aurora police sergeant.
Loree McCormick-Rice, 51, and her daughter, Cassidy, 12, face misdemeanor charges of obstructing a peace officer, resisting arrest and failure to obey an order.
When the tape was shown in Aurora municipal court, more than a dozen supporters of the mother and daughter gasped as the scene that unfolded on a television screen.
McCormick-Rice and Cassidy say the incident began when Sgt. Charles DeShazer hurled a racial epithet at them in a grocery store parking lot, though he tells a different story.
“Five policemen and one woman, it burns me up,” one woman said of the tape.
“Can you believe this in 2006? This isn’t the ’50s anymore,” said another in the gallery.
A jury trial for McCormick-Rice was scheduled to start Thursday, but it was continued when a new charge of disturbing the peace was added.
Defense attorney David Lane argued it should have been covered at an earlier motions hearing. Municipal Judge Shawn Day agreed.
A motions hearing was scheduled for Nov. 27 and a trial for Dec. 12.
In a report on the June 17 incident near East Mississippi Avenue and South Chambers Road, DeShazer wrote that he told McCormick-Rice to leave and she instead cursed at him. DeShazer was working as a security guard.
The tape showed DeShazer handcuffing Cassidy with her hands behind her back and forcing her to the ground on her belly. It shows DeShazer with a knee in Cassidy’s back. A short time later, Cassidy tried to sit up and DeShazer pushed her back down.
McCormick-Rice contends that Cassidy’s shoulder was fractured in the fracas and that her daughter was treated at the Children’s Hospital.
Two security guards are seen on the tape running from the grocery store to the incident, then additional Aurora police officers arrive.
DeShazer pulls McCormick-Rice from her vehicle and forces her to the ground.
DeShazer’s unmarked car, with a flashing light on the dashboard, then blocks the camera view of McCormick- Rice on the ground.
McCormick-Rice said she has severe asthma and lung problems. She uses a portable breathing device but was not wearing it the night of the incident.
DeShazer and Tim Joyce of the Aurora city attorney’s office played the tape in the courtroom for Lane during a break when Day was away.
McCormick-Rice and Cassidy were shaken by the video. They began crying and left the courtroom.
At one point during the hearing, Joyce turned to the gallery and angrily scolded spectators for verbally reacting.
“Be quiet, or you’ll be kicked out of the courtroom,” Joyce said.
Day took over the heated moment and reminded Joyce that he – as judge – would control his courtroom and restore order if needed.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
Excerpts of the surveillance video, seen below, include Loree McCormick-Rice lodging a complaint against the officer at the store’s customer service counter, then the parking lot handcuffing of her daughter, and McCormick being forcibly removed from her car.
