If you want to know why some Denver residents have come to believe police can do virtually anything without meaningful consequences, consider the saga of Detective Paul Baca.
Now, Baca may in fact be a good cop, but outsiders would be hard pressed to say so based upon what we actually know about him. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to say he should still be investigating crimes — although he is.
Meanwhile, the sole document that might shed light on Baca’s seemingly charmed status in the robbery unit has been sealed by Judge Sheila Rappaport — meaning we could be left in the dark for good.
Here’s what we know about Baca: that he appears to have assisted in fabricating an injury by an assault victim as lead investigator in downtown Denver’s race-based muggings in 2009. One victim said Baca pressured him to say assailants broke a tooth, when it had been chipped in a previous incident, and a transcript of a taped interview at police headquarters (brought to light by CBS4’s Brian Maass) seems to support part of the claim.
Baca testified in two hearings that the victim’s tooth was chipped in the assault. Might not that qualify as, ah, perjury?
Shortly after the victim recanted his broken-tooth tale, Denver prosecutors reduced a felony assault charge for seven suspects to misdemeanor assault and the Jefferson County DA’s office was asked to look into Baca’s conduct.
In June, Baca’s image took a second drubbing when a judge dismissed charges against another suspect in the muggings while denouncing Baca’s sworn statement in the case for “reckless disregard for the truth.”
So much for what we know. Here’s what we don’t know.
• Why the Jeffco district attorney referred the Baca probe to a grand jury.
• Why the grand jury chose not to indict Baca, despite the troubling evidence referenced above.
• Why the grand jury then wrote a report rather than drop the matter.
• Finally, why a judge has sealed the report — because her explanation is sealed, too.
In fact, we might not even know the investigation ended with such a muzzling were it not for the notoriety of the original crimes and lingering press attention.
What is it in the grand jury’s report that the judge felt she needed to suppress? What could possibly override the public interest in understanding why Baca wasn’t indicted, assuming the report provides clues?
To his credit, Jeffco DA Scott Storey disagrees with the judge and has promised to appeal her ruling. “That has never happened to me before,” he said. “The preferred outcome is that we make the report public, and that is why we are appealing.”
In retrospect, we might have enjoyed a more transparent outcome if Storey had kept the investigation in-house. At least he could have offered a rationale if he’d cleared Baca of wrongdoing. For example, after a Denver jail inmate died this year while being subdued by five deputies, Denver DA Mitch Morrissey examined their conduct and offered a persuasive explanation for why they’d acted properly.
Baca desperately needs someone to provide him with a similar defense — and if not from the grand jury or Storey, then at the very least from his department.
Perhaps a police official could explain why Baca’s behavior has been misunderstood and mischaracterized — or, alternatively, why a “reckless disregard for the truth” is not enough to keep you off the robbery unit.
Denver residents deserve to know just what is the penalty for shading the truth. A few months ago, Denver’s manager of safety at the time, Ron Perea, docked two officers for only three days’ pay for writing reports that included fundamental falsehoods because Perea viewed the errors “more as misconceptions.”
Did Baca suffer from misconceptions, too? Or is there a more sympathetic explanation for his behavior?
If we don’t see the grand jury report, how will we ever know?
E-mail Vincent Carroll at vcarroll@ .
