Colorado’s second-highest court concluded last month that a Denver police officer and the city itself were not immune from the negligence lawsuit of a scooter rider injured after the officer ran a red light.

Jordon Reynolds was riding a scooter on N. Holly Street late one night in October 2023 just as Officer Emmett Hurd was traveling fast on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. to assist another officer. Hurd had a red light at the intersection. He slowed, briefly looked at his computer and then rolled into the intersection. He collided with Reynolds.

The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act broadly shields public employees and entities from lawsuits over injuries they cause. There is an exception, however, for a public employee’s operation of a vehicle. To receive immunity for running a red light, an emergency vehicle operator must slow down for safe operation and use lights or sirens.

After receiving evidence and testimony, District Court Judge Jon J. Olafson concluded Hurd did slow down as required for safely operating through the red light. Any acceleration was a “negligible” contributor to the crash.

Yet, Olafson determined the defendants were not entitled to immunity because Hurd was not likely using his lights or sirens when he entered the intersection.

“Defendant Officer Hurd’s body camera footage establishes that at the time Defendant Officer Hurd exited the police vehicle, no emergency sirens or lights were activated,” he wrote. “In addition, the Court reviewed the remarks made by Defendant Officer Hurd while the body camera was recording and found no contemporaneous statements made by Defendant Officer Hurd that the emergency lights or sirens were activated or that they were being toggled at the time of the Accident.”

The defendants appealed the decision, arguing Olafson had used faulty reasoning to determine that the lights being off after the crash necessarily meant they were off during the crash.

“In its simplest application,” countered Reynolds’ attorney, “Denver’s position would preclude the fact that a gun was smoking from any inference that the gun had been fired.”

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel agreed that the evidence suggested Hurd neglected to activate his lights or siren.

“Officer Hurd testified that, as soon as he hit Reynolds, he ‘immediately’ put the car in park, jumped out, and did ‘nothing else.’ Further, he said he jumped out of the car so fast that it was still rolling from being abruptly put into park,” wrote Judge Katharine E. Lum in the Oct. 16 opinion. “Given Officer Hurd’s testimony that he took ‘no intermediate steps between stopping the car and getting out to render aid’ to Reynolds, the court could reasonably infer from the footage that the state of the lights and siren when Officer Hurd exited the vehicle immediately after the accident was the same as it had been during the accident.”

The case is Reynolds v. Hurd et al.