Prosecutors have opened an investigation into a video showing alleged misconduct on Friday night by Lake County deputies in Leadville, but the county sheriff says he’s confident his agency did nothing wrong.
The 10-minute recording, posted on YouTube, appears to show sheriff’s deputies detaining a family inside their trailer home. One man is shown lying face-down on the ground with at least one officer on top of him while a handcuffed woman is handled by another officer.
The people being detained are speaking Spanish. At times, a man screams in pain.
“You guys don’t have a warrant to get in the house!” the woman filming the encounter, who appears to be holding a child, screams. “Stop doing that! Stop, please!”
An officer tells the woman filming that the sheriff’s office came to the home because “we were called.”
“We have to make sure everyone is safe,” the officer says. “If you don’t want to let us in, that’s fine.”
WARNING: This video contains explicit language and may be disturbing to some.
The 5th Judicial District Attorney’s Office says its probe is not a comment on the actions of the officers involved, but rather “a typical step in matters involving use of force.”
Lake County Sheriff Rod Fenske said Tuesday that he doesn’t feel there was any wrongdoing.
“As of today, I’ve not received any kind of complaint,” he told The Denver Post. “I think the DA got it and when he called me yesterday he said, ‘I got to look into this.’ ”
District Attorney Bruce Brown said the incident happened about 10 p.m. Friday at 150 Colorado 300. No one is believed to have been seriously hurt.
Fenske said authorities were summoned by a caller who asked for law enforcement at a trailer home. As deputies were arriving at the scene, they got a second call from the same person reporting that a possibly intoxicated man was pushing a woman around.
Deputies forced open the home’s door after the people inside did not answer, he said.
“When we go to calls like that and they don’t answer the door, we can’t just turn around and walk away,” Fenske said. “We’ve been in that trailer a number of times.”
Two people — 39-year-old Jose Serrano and 40-year-old — were cited on suspicion of harassment and obstruction, investigators say. Fenske said he’s not sure why prosecutors are looking into the case.
In a news release Tuesday afternoon, the sheriff’s office said that Leadville police Chief Robert Glenny reviewed the video and reported back to Fenske that based on the recording, he observed nothing wrong.
Brown said his office’s investigation, launched on Monday, will include an analysis of the video, the reports of officers and interviews with witnesses.
