Colorado’s second-highest court last week upheld Denver’s discipline of two officers whose investigation of a domestic violence report was brief, failed to separate the victim from her abuser, and overlooked the victim’s severe injuries.

Officers Cory Stuper and Brian Finneran argued that pervasive procedural violations in the adjudicative process and their own desire to respect the victim’s Fourth Amendment rights were grounds to overturn their 10-day suspensions.

Although a three-judge Court of Appeals panel was concerned with the irregularities in the case, it found the evidence supported Denver’s conclusion that the officers could and should have done more to investigate the perpetrator’s abuse of the victim.

Stuper and Finneran “were presented with an unlit house and then encountered the male who admitted that there had been a verbal altercation,” wrote Judge Sueanna P. Johnson in the April 30 opinion. Yet, “the officers did not separate the parties, as their domestic violence training had taught them. The victim’s later statement revealed that she did not feel safe to let the officers know that she could not move from the bed due to her extensive injuries, but that if they had separated her from the perpetrator, she would have told the police she needed help.”

Just before 11 p.m. one night in April 2021, a woman in Colorado Springs called 911 to report that her mother was being assaulted in Denver. Specifically, the mother phoned her daughter five times, repeatedly said don’t touch me” to someone, and whispered to her daughter to call the police.

Stuper and Finneran arrived at a darkened house and spent several minutes unsuccessfully trying to contact anyone inside. As they were leaving, a man appeared at the door. He acknowledged a verbal argument took place earlier.

The man allowed the officers to go to the victim’s bedroom. With the man standing next to them in the darkened bedroom, the officers told the victim that “your daughter called.” The victim remained under the bedsheets and asked the officers to turn off the flashlight. She said she was fine and asked them to leave.

In total, the officers were in the home for three minutes. Finneran called the daughter and indicated nothing was amiss. The daughter’s husband later traveled from Colorado Springs to Denver to check on the mother. He took her to the hospital, where she required five surgeries to address her internal bleeding and ruptured spleen.

The city opened an investigation and the deputy executive director of safety determined Stuper and Finneran violated departmental policy with their inadequate investigation.

The officers appealed to the Civil Service Commission, where hearing officer Daniel C. Ferguson agreed that Stuper and Finneran were legally permitted to investigate further, and they should have separated the victim from the abuser to accurately determine whether she needed help.

The officers’ actions were “substantially arbitrary to the values of the Department and substantially interfered with its operations and professional image and involved a demonstrable serious risk to public safety,” he wrote.

From there, the officers sought judicial review in Denver District Court. Judge Jon J. Olafson once again concluded that the evidence supported the disciplinary decision.

Finally, they turned to the Court of Appeals, arguing that their actions respected the victim’s constitutional rights.

“The record as a whole demonstrates that the female resident at the scene clearly and unequivocally revoked Appellants’ right to continue their warrantless search in this case. To expect law enforcement officers to continue a warrantless search when no Fourth Amendment exception or exigency is present is wholly violative of citizens’ Fourth Amendment Rights,” wrote the officers’ lawyers. “When the alleged victim asked the Officers to leave, they had no authority to remain.”

“Appellants had sufficient information from the 911 call to reasonably believe there was a domestic violence issue,” countered Assistant City Attorney Margaret C. Tharp. Yet, they left “a woman severely injured in the hands of her abuser after only a 3-minute cursory investigation that was primarily composed of conversing with the abuser himself.”

The Court of Appeals panel acknowledged Denver’s own procedural violations during the case, by “misplacing” the hearing transcripts and failing to disclose video evidence. However, the panel concluded the violations did not change the fact that the evidence supported the discipline on the officers.

Johnson rejected the officers’ argument that they complied with the Fourth Amendment by leaving the home after the victim asked them to.

“As the Commission reasoned, the male’s admission of an earlier argument, along with the dispatch information the officers had received, was ‘sufficient to provide exigent circumstances to permit them to investigate more thoroughly to determine whether the (victim) was in need of assistance’,” she wrote.

The case is Stuper et al. v. City and County of Denver.