A Colorado Springs man failed to plausibly show that a detective violated his constitutional rights by searching his home following a report of police impersonation and unlawful firearm ownership, a federal judge has decided.

However, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer also permitted two of Brian Halik’s claims to proceed: First, that he was subjected to a potentially unlawful strip search and, second, that officers “stalked and harassed” Halik. The City of Colorado Springs maintained that there was either a lack of evidence or conflicting evidence disproving Halik’s allegations, but Brimmer rejected those pleas to dismiss the entirety of the lawsuit.

Halik alleged numerous constitutional violations by Detective Adam Brewer and unnamed members of the city’s Tactical Enforcement Unit – also known as SWAT. Brewer initiated a “raid” of Halik’s home on Feb. 20, 2019, according to the lawsuit, wherein law enforcement “ripped Plaintiff’s home apart” and removed his property without compensation.

Among the specific allegations, Halik accused Brewer of violating his Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches and seizures by subjecting him to a strip search in front of Halik’s home and desecrating his father’s ashes while ransacking the house.

Brewer sought a search warrant after learning of a bizarre series of allegations against Halik. According to the application, drafted the day before the home search, a student attending classes with Halik at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs reported to police that he had been staying at Halik’s home out of fear. Halik had convinced the man that he was law enforcement and that only Halik could protect the man’s life from people who were allegedly trying to kill him.

The witness further explained that Halik had a gun, bulletproof vests and materials showing federal law enforcement insignia. Halik reportedly had access to a vehicle with red and blue lights and used what sounded like law enforcement jargon when speaking to a “dispatcher.” At one point, the witness accompanied Halik on “surveillance” of a vehicle, and heard gunfire after Halik approached the occupants. Halik later produced an official-looking “affidavit” that claimed the person he was surveilling was a drug dealer and murderer.

Brewer described Halik’s actions as “grooming behavior,” asserting that Halik was using his authority as a fake law enforcement officer to gain the witness’s trust and force him to depend on Halik. The witness also reported that he could not turn to Colorado Springs police for protection because Halik said the officers “wouldn’t know what to do with an incident like this.”

Halik had a long history of impersonating law enforcement, according to documents Colorado Springs submitted to the court. In September 2013, he pleaded guilty in federal court in Virginia and had to surrender a fake identification badge and taser. In 2014, he received probation for criminal impersonation in New York. That same year, now living in Colorado, police agencies in El Paso County contacted Halik multiple times upon reports he was holding himself out in public as an officer.

Noting that Halik was prohibited from possessing firearms, Brewer applied to thoroughly search Halik’s home.

Halik’s lawsuit, however, claimed that the search turned up no contraband or evidence of a crime. He called the witness’s statements “fabricated.” Court records show that no state or federal criminal case was opened against Halik after the February 2019 operation.

Colorado Springs quickly moved to dismiss the lawsuit.

“Plaintiff is not a law enforcement officer, but he likes to play one in real life,” wrote City Attorney Wynetta P. Massey. The search of Halik’s home “is reasonable where, as here, an adult with a violent history is expected to be present in the residence with access to a firearm and body armor.”

In evaluating the city’s request to toss the litigation, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nina Y. Wang largely sided with Colorado Springs. Contrary to Halik’s assertions, Brewer did not appear to have made a false statement to obtain the search warrant, had not executed an illegal search, nor was the use of the SWAT team unreasonable, Wang found.

She did, however, recommend allowing three of Halik’s claims to proceed. First, Halik had characterized as an unlawful search and seizure Brewer’s treatment of his father’s ashes. Wang did not believe the mere search of the urn was unlawful, given the warrant’s authorization to look at containers, but she conceded Brewer’s alleged dumping of the ashes could amount to a constitutional violation.

“(T)he court cannot say, at this stage of the proceedings, that the manner in which this particular search was conducted was not unreasonable. As such, this claim should be allowed to proceed,” the magistrate judge wrote.

Wang also recommended that Halik’s claim of stalking and harassment by Brewer be allowed to proceed because the city had not responded to that allegation. Finally, she found Halik had plausibly alleged an unreasonable strip search.

The city objected to Wang’s findings and urged Brimmer to dismiss the three disputed claims as well. Brimmer agreed that Colorado Springs had a valid objection to the urn search. Because Halik had alleged Brewer acted unreasonably in deciding to search the urn, any dumping of the ashes was not an issue.

“The magistrate judge construed this language as alleging a claim for searching the urn in an unreasonable manner,” Brimmer wrote in his March 28 order. “However, the allegations are focused on defendant’s authority to search the urn and the reasonableness of him doing so.”

Brimmer otherwise upheld Wang’s recommendation, including her decision not to analyze body-worn camera footage of the alleged strip search. The city asserted that the video “blatantly contradicts” Halik’s version of events, and that Brewer did not even participate in the search. Brimmer countered that the court was not obligated to consider the video before deciding whether to dismiss the lawsuit.

The case is Halik v. Brewer et al.