Glyn Hart was suicidal when he crashed into a parked car in La Junta three years ago.

He was suicidal when a police officer arrested him, suicidal when the officer took him to a hospital, and suicidal when the officer left him alone in a police holding cell for 74 minutes, wearing a hoodie with a drawstring.

Hart, 46, used that drawstring to die by suicide in his cell on the night of Nov. 1, 2021.

His children are now suing the La Junta police officer who left him there — bringing claims against the officer that are only possible because of sweeping police reform passed in 2020 that stripped Colorado law enforcement officers of qualified immunity, a legal defense that previously blocked police officers and sheriff’s deputies from being sued in their individual capacities in most cases.

But the officer who left Hart alone, Mitch Zgorzynski, says he’s still entitled to immunity despite the reform — under Colorado common law.

He argues that although the 2020 reforms stripped officers of qualified immunity under the , common law immunity — an earlier legal precedent that the immunity act essentially rendered moot when it was created five decades ago — was not affected and should now kick in.

It’s an argument that law enforcement officers have been widely testing out in the wake of the 2020 reforms, with mixed results in the courts. Civil rights attorneys say the fallback to common law is designed to keep law enforcement officers immune from civil claims despite the 2020 reforms.

“It¶¶Ňőap basically qualified immunity but by another name,” said attorney Andy McNulty, who is not involved in the La Junta case. “They’re trying to shoehorn the same qualified immunity protections that Colorado legislators and citizens forcefully said should not be given to law enforcement officers in Colorado by raising these common law immunity defenses.”

The common law argument is relatively new, since lawsuits take years to work through the courts, said Spencer Bryan, attorney for Hart’s family in the La Junta case.

“It¶¶Ňőap a shock to the system when the legislature comes in and redefines the landscape of what rights are available to people,” he said. “What we are seeing now is the response to that is, ‘No, we still want our immunity and we’re not going to let you have the rights the legislature said you can have.’ ”

A Boulder District Court judge last year found that common law immunity was still available to sheriff’s deputies in a . A district court magistrate in Chaffee County ruled the opposite way in April in the case of a man who claimed he was arrested by SWAT officers who used a flash-bang grenade without warning to arrest him on misdemeanor charges.

The Boulder judge found that because the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act was created in addition to — not instead of — common law immunity, the latter still exists and applies despite the 2020 reform, because the 2020 law did not explicitly wipe away common law immunity. The Chaffee County judge, by contrast, found that the 2020 law was plainly designed to prohibit both types of immunity for officers.

Neither district court decision is binding on other courts or in other cases, and the issue may ultimately need to be settled by the Colorado Supreme Court, Bryan said.

“We are just now seeing how defendants are going to try to address it, how courts are going to try to address it, and what really are the implications for the general public,” he said.

Mari Newman, an attorney who helped craft the 2020 reform, said she was surprised by the “audacity” of the common law argument when it first cropped up.

“It really is so obviously inconsistent with the law that it should just be rejected without a second thought,” she said.

The judge in Hart’s case has yet to rule on the common law immunity argument.

In court filings, Zgorzynski’s attorneys argued that Zgorzynksi believed Hart was no longer suicidal after a doctor at the hospital cleared Hart to go to the police holding facility that night. He let the man keep his hoodie because the cell was cold, the attorneys wrote. They did not return a request for comment.

“Separate and apart from qualified immunity, good faith provides law enforcement officers a common law defense of good faith,” attorney Sara Cook wrote in a motion to end the lawsuit. “Colorado has long afforded this defense to law enforcement officers.”

McNulty said lawmakers could step in while the issue continues to work through the court system.

“The whole point of this law was to make sure police officers could be held accountable in civil court for the violation of people’s constitutional rights,” he said. “…So if courts do find this frivolous argument (valid) and give officers the same protections they had with qualified immunity, there needs to be an answer from the legislature, and it needs to happen right away.”

La Junta police responded to a home in the 1100 block of Smithland Avenue at 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and found two adults and two children with gunshot wounds, officials said in a news release Wednesday.

Two adults and a child were pronounced dead at the scene, and the second child was taken to a Denver-area hospital and later pronounced dead.

Investigators believe it was not a random incident and that the people who died knew each other, CBI officials said.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

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Lawyers for the once-aspiring mixed martial arts fighter said they could not talk about the specifics, however, due to the terms of the settlement — only that Duran “is satisfied.”

Federal court records show the lawsuit was dismissed earlier this month and that Duran, 26, the city of La Junta, as well as former police Sgt. Vince Fraker, are to bear their own attorneys fees and costs. The settlement newspaper in Pueblo.

Caution: This video contains footage that some may find disturbing. 

Fraker and another officer took Duran into protective custody on Dec. 7, 2015, after his parents . It was at least his third encounter with La Junta police over a four-day span, Duran’s family has said.

Duran, handcuffed, was taken to the Arkansas Valley Medical Center for treatment. Body-camera footage from the hospital captured events that Duran said led to his paralysis.

In the video, Fraker is seen forcefully yanking Duran out of a police department sports utility vehicle onto his head. Fraker and another officer then drag Duran to the hospital’s emergency entrance. The video shows Fraker retrieving a wheelchair into which the officers place Duran, who immediately slumps over his knees and is otherwise motionless.

Fraker then grabs Duran’s shoulder and forces him upright, grasping his neck to keep him in place as they wheel him into the hospital, where he is moved onto a bed and restrained.

The graphic footage was released to The Denver Post in June 2016 by the 16th Judicial District Attorney’s Office after an open records request

A grand jury in April 2016  against Fraker or the other officer involved in the encounter.

The grand jurors wrote in a report that while Fraker was responsible for Duran’s injuries when he rolled him out of a La Junta police SUV, it “cannot be the basis of any criminal charges.” The grand jury, however, called Duran’s injuries “tragic.”

Fraker was no longer working for the city of La Junta as of July 2016, said Bill Jackson, who oversees La Junta’s public safety department.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation says La Junta police were called to a home on the 2300 block of Carson Avenue on Sept. 16 where they found Timothy L. Kirkpatrick unresponsive.

Kirkpatrick was later pronounced dead.

“The circumstances surrounding Kirkpatrick’s death are currently being investigated,” CBI said in a news release Friday. “…Investigators indicate there is no threat to the public’s safety at this time. Information will be released as it becomes available.”

The La Junta Police Department is the lead on the case and is being assisted by the CBI, the Otero County Sheriff’s Office and the 16th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Further details in the case were not released, including why investigators think Kirkpatrick’s death is suspicious.

Body camera footage shows a La Junta police sergeant forcefully yanking a handcuffed man out of a department sports utility vehicle onto his head in an encounter last year that left him paralyzed.

“I stopped! I stopped!” Donovan Duran moans as the sergeant then grabs his neck.

“Get up!” an officer can be heard yelling as Duran lies on the asphalt outside the Arkansas Valley Medical Center.

The sergeant, Vince Fraker, and another officer then drag Donovan to the hospital’s emergency entrance. The video shows Fraker retrieving a wheelchair in which they place Duran, who immediately slumps over his knees motionless.

Fraker then grabs Duran’s shoulder and forces him upright, grasping his neck to keep him in place as they wheel him into the hospital where he is moved to a bed and restrained.

The grand jurors wrote in a report that while Fraker was responsible for Duran’s injuries — a fractured neck that left him paralyzed from his nipples down — when he rolled him out of a La Junta police SUV, it “cannot be the basis of any criminal charges.”

The grand jury, however, called Duran’s injuries “tragic.”

The jurors’ report and body camera footage show that before he was injured, Duran was ordered out of the police SUV but did not comply, saying “Don’t touch me.” He then put his handcuffed hands behind his knees in an apparent attempt to slip his handcuffs in front of him, at which point Fraker rolled him out and onto the ground head-first.

Duran, 25, an aspiring mixed martial arts fighter, had  that the two officers attacked him Dec. 7, fracturing his neck and leaving him without feeling below his upper chest.

Duran was never charged in the encounter. He was picked up by police after family members said they called authorities throughout the day to report him being drunk and in need of help.

Duran’s encounter with La Junta police was at least his third over a four-day span. His family said he had been taken to the hospital at least twice by officers — once from the nearby town of Rocky Ford — in the days before he was paralyzed.

His parents say they had repeatedly called authorities because he was drinking vodka and acting paranoid. He was released the other two times, family members said, after police explained there was no charge on which to hold him.

The body camera footage shows Fraker was audibly frustrated by  dealing with Duran while explaining the situation to a doctor at Arkansas Valley Medical Center.

Duran’s attorneys filed a federal lawsuit Monday in Denver against the city of La Junta and Fraker seeking unspecified damages for Duran’s injuries.

“La Junta Police Department training of officers does not include proper training in responding to calls involving persons in crisis or with obvious mental health problems, including use of force policies and de-escalation strategies,” the lawsuit says.

The filing also adds: “Fraker’s use of excessive force as described above herein was outrageous and shocking to the conscience, in violation of Duran’s substantive due process rights.”

Bill Jackson, who oversees La Junta’s public safety department, said Tuesday an internal investigation into the encounter is still in the process of being completed by an outside agency.