Former Loveland Police Department officers Austin Hopp and Daria Jalali face criminal charges, including official misconduct, for their treatment of a 73-year-old woman with dementia when they arrested her last summer.

Hopp also faces charges of assault causing serious bodily injury and attempting to influence a public servant. Jalali’s charges stem from discipline associated with Senate Bill 20-217, the police accountability measure that became law in 2020. She is accused of failure by a peace officer to intervene and to report the use of force.

Details of the officers’ treatment of Karen Garner last June came to light in April when attorney Sarah Schielke filed a federal lawsuit on her behalf.

Hopp and Jalali arrested Garner last summer after she left a Walmart, having forgotten to pay for less than $15 worth of items. They forcibly subdued her, and the footage of officers’ behavior during the several hours she was in custody shows them mocking the incident and Garner’s injuries. Garner was not taken to a hospital until much later in the evening.

The announcement of charges came at a news conference Wednesday with Gordon McLaughlin, district attorney for Colorado’s 8th Judicial District covering Larimer and Jackson counties. Separately, Loveland Police and Garner’s family each also held conferences in reaction to the news. 

Flanked by Garner’s daughter and daughter-in-law, who were by turns tearful and angry, Schielke recounted two now-infamous phrases said by officers during the incident: “A little bloody, a little muddy. That’s how it works.”

And “Ready for the pop?” referring to the sound of Garner’s shoulder dislocating, when they rewatched body-camera footage of her arrest.

“I continue to hear the word used by various individuals investigating this case, ‘excessive force.’ This is not an excessive force case. It’s torture, in broad daylight, by multiple officers,” Schielke said.

The charges Jalali faces of failure to report use of force and failure to intervene are Class 1 misdemeanors, while official misconduct is a Class 2 misdemeanor.

Hopp’s charge of assault causing serious injury is a Class 3 felony, and attempting to influence a public servant is a Class 4 felony.

McLaughlin said the investigative report of the incident is nearly 700 pages.

He said Hopp made “substantial omissions and specific statements in his reporting of the interaction in an attempt to thwart the investigation of his conduct.”

Sgt. Phil Metzler – the supervising officer on the scene – brushed off a bystander’s complaint and approved of how Hopp and Jalali handled the incident, according to the federal lawsuit. He has been placed on administrative leave.

Hopp and Jalali, along with community service officer Tyler Blackett, resigned at the end of April. Blackett has been accused of aiding Hopp and Jalali in transporting Garner out of the patrol car and mocking the incident with them.

Loveland Police Chief Robert Ticer said the criminal charges didn’t surprise him and he believes all officers who abuse the badge should be held accountable.

“I fully support these charges,” Ticer said. “I’ll say it again: I fully support these charges.”

Ticer said he first became aware of the incident after the federal lawsuit was filed and video of Garner’s arrest was posted on April 14. Without it, department heads might never have learned about the incident.

“I do not know if we would’ve found out about that without the federal lawsuit,” Ticer said. “Perhaps if it would have come in through a different channel, but that’s how we were notified of it.”

Schielke later said the charges against Hopp and Jalali don’t go far enough. She said she believes charges against Metzler, including criminal negligence, failure to intervene to prevent illegal use of force and false imprisonment of an at-risk person, would be justified. Schielke also called for Metzler and Ticer’s removals from the department.

“How is it that just six criminal charges against just two officers is the result, while everybody else at the Loveland Police Department, namely the chief of police, Robert Ticer, and the on-scene supervisor, Sergeant Metzler, remain employed?” Schielke said.

“At the horrible core of this case has always been the question of how this criminal conduct occurred right in the open [in] downtown Loveland. And it then carried on, right into the open back at the Loveland Police Department.”

Garner’s daughter, Allisa Swartz, clutched a sprig of purple flowers – which her mother loved to pick – and spoke through sobs. She said her mother has become fearful, and Garner’s post-traumatic stress from the incident has worsened the progression of her dementia.

“She’s just really scared and traumatized. Instead of embracing us because we are her loved ones, she pushes us away,” Swartz said. “Instead of reaching over and just touching us to let us know she cares, she just pulls away.”

McLaughlin took office in January. He said a member of the district attorney’s office watched video footage of Garner’s arrest as part of their review and eventual dismissal of a criminal case against Garner.

“I have made it very clear to the members of my office, attorneys and otherwise, that I will not stand for someone looking the other way on evidence such as that. I expect that evidence [to be] brought directly to me … and that has been made crystal clear to my employees.”

Colorado lawmakers last year passed the bill that increased police accountability, and one of the law’s backers said the law was designed for situations like this.

“The arrest of Karen Garner was a horrific incident that should have never happened, and the use of force in that situation was obviously, and entirely, uncalled for,” said Rep. Leslie Herod, D-Denver, in a text message to the Denver Gazette. “While I have concerns with how this internal investigation was handled, these charges are clearly appropriate. They demonstrate just how important it was for us to pass police accountability legislation last year, and they show Colorado’s reforms are working.

“In SB20-217, we created specific criminal misdemeanor offenses in order to prevent and hold law enforcement accountable for exactly these types of incidents. Because of our actions, these officers will now have to answer to the courts.”

Since the incident, the LPD has enrolled each officer in Alzheimer’s awareness training, and each must undergo additional de-escalation training next month, Ticer said.

Additionally, Ticer has enlisted the city’s human resources department to oversee a third-party internal affairs investigation. The third-party team will also conduct a comprehensive assessment of the police department as a whole.

“When you have broken trust there are many people in the community, many people in government that want to quickly restore that trust. Our police department wants to restore that trust,” Ticer said. “I think it’s normal when you have this much emotion and have this type of severe situation that you’re going to have a lot of ideas to work through, but I anticipate that there will be some oversight in some fashion of this organization as an outcome of this situation.

“I welcome anything that can help our department be better, so we can serve our community the right way.”

Some ideas that have been suggested include a trust commission and a civilian oversight and review board, Ticer said.

When asked what Ticer would say to Garner’s family if given a chance, he said the first steps toward justice and accountability happened when the district attorney filed the charges.

“I know they’re seeking justice and I know they’re seeking accountability, and today there was a very strong message from this community of charges on two former police officers,” Ticer said. “That really begins accountability and justice.”

But when asked what they would say to Loveland police if given the chance, Garner’s daughter-in-law, Shannon Steward, said she has nothing to say.