The second week of a federal trial challenging Denver police’s handling of protests in 2020 sparked by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis started with the first rank-and-file officer to take the stand.

Former Denver Police Department officer Keith Valentine testified late Monday morning into the afternoon. He maintained that footage from body-worn cameras shows an incomplete picture of the danger protesters posed to police when he and other officers fired munitions into crowds throughout the demonstrations. He said he believed the chaotic conditions of the protests meant it sometimes wasn’t feasible to give verbal warnings before using his weapons, and made it unsafe to arrest people who had broken laws.

The federal excessive force lawsuit claims Denver failed to train officers for responding to the protests, leading to what the protesters say were dangerous and indiscriminate use of less-lethal munitions to control crowds.

Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor, the city’s police watchdog agency, released a report in fall 2020 calling the police department’s use of less-lethal munitions throughout the protests “troubling.”

The report found police used force against people who were not showing physical aggression toward officers, fired munitions at people’s heads, faces and groins, and continued deploying chemical agents after crowds dispersed. It also found officers often didn’t prepare use-of-force reports until weeks after the conduct occurred and officers frequently didn’t wear or turn on their body-worn cameras.

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Arnold & Porter partner Matthew Douglas questioned Valentine about video footage appearing to show him throwing an OC grenade – which disperses pepper spray and explodes with a loud sound and flash of light – into a crowd of people after they have begun running into a park away from police. Valentine said the short clip doesn’t show anything the protesters were doing before he threw the grenade.

“I would never intentionally throw a grenade at somebody that is fleeing. These cameras … they’re one piece of a puzzle of everything that was going on.”

Camera footage from the protests doesn’t accurately show “the totality of the circumstances,” Valentine said, a phrase he repeated many times over the course of his testimony.

He said he doesn’t remember giving an order for people in the crowd to disperse before he threw the grenade. Valentine did not receive training specific to using less-lethal grenades during his time as an officer.

Douglas also zeroed in on a moment when Valentine pepper sprayed a man seconds after telling him to “Get out of here” when he said officers were trying to stop people from breaking into the state Capitol building.

Valentine said police used munitions at that scene to compel people to disperse. He didn’t specifically remember whether the man was among the people trying to break into the Capitol, nor whether he had given the man a warning before spraying him.

“And after you told him to ‘get out of here,’ did you give him a chance to get out of there before you sprayed him?” Douglas asked.

“Everybody had ample opportunity to get off of the hill of the Capitol,” Valentine said.

“How much time was there between the time you told him to get out of there and you sprayed him?”

“Between the time I told them to get out of there and sprayed was about five seconds,” Valentine replied after watching a replay of the footage.

Protesters take stand in first day of testimony in trial over police response to 2020 demonstrations

During his testimony, Valentine varied in whether he remembered his specific justifications for using munitions in situations he was shown.

The jury also heard part of a videotaped deposition previously taken from Cmdr. Michael O’Donnell. He said the police department’s policies require an officer in a position of authority to give permission to fire pepper balls. Valentine didn’t have clear memories surrounding senior officers giving orders to deploy munitions.

The policy has flexibility built in for officers to decide if circumstances warrant using pepper balls in a “violent” crowd without first getting that approval, O’Donnell said. But the officer has to be able to articulate the justification, he added.

“This is our general policy … but understanding the human element that’s involved, you cannot outline every condition that may or may not occur.”

Valentine said on cross-examination he received racial insults from people who believed that as a police officer he was on the wrong side of the conflict because he’s Black. People called him “Uncle Tom” and “you name it,” he said. He added he tried to have conversations with those people when time allowed.

“Just explaining, from my perspective, in that moment, there wasn’t necessarily sides. And me standing here doing my job to the best of my ability wasn’t indicative of sides or anything like that.

“There are a lot of things within society that need to change. I would never disagree with that at all. The way that you go about it I think is pretty important, though.”

Trial over Denver police’s handling of 2020 protests begins in federal court