EAN THOMAS TAFOYA FOR DENVER MAYOR

Ean Thomas Tafoya, educator, nonprofit leader, and promoter of the arts, is a fourth generation Denverite who has spent his life in public service. Throughout his career, he has worked for three branches of local government, served on dozens of community boards, and led many successful ballot initiatives. He is a proud civil rights and environmental justice leader and is currently serving as cochair of the Colorado Environmental Justice Action Task Force. Tafoya’s career as a public servant honors his heritage of preserving and caring for the land and the people. Look at the work we've been able to do together, imagine if we could do it every day!

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ashamed once the offenders were clearly identified.

The officers worked for a socalled special unit known as SCORPION (Street Crimes Operation to Restore Peace in Our Neighborhoods) that the city retired after Nichols' death. It made some 566 arrests in its year and a half in existence, according to Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland.

Four of the five now former Memphis Police officers, charged in Nichols’ death, had previous infractions with the department, according to national media reports. The officers, Demetrius Haley, Desmond Mills, Jr., Emmitt Martin III, Justin Smith and Tadarrius Bean, were terminated Jan. 20 and have now been charged with the murder of 29-year-old Nichols.

Four of those officers — Haley, Martin, Mills and Smith — were previously reprimanded or suspended and cited for such infractions as failure to report when they used physical force, failure to report a domestic dispute, or for damages sustained to their squad cruisers. Bean did not have any infractions in the files. Here is a look at their records.

Demetrius Haley

Haley began his career with the department in August 2020. He violated departmental policy in February 2021, when he failed to fill out a response to resistance form after he grabbed a woman's arm to handcuff her. The forms must be completed if an officer uses any part of their body to compel compliance.

In a hearing, Haley claimed that he underestimated the amount of force needed to require filling out the form. He was praised by his boss who said he was a "hard-working officer" who "routinely makes good decisions" and "he was sure that this was a limited event." Haley was given a written reprimand.

In August 2021, Haley ran his cruiser into a stop sign while responding to a call about an assault. During the hearing, he said that as he was rushing to the scene when a call came in over the radio that an officer was holding the suspect at gunpoint. "I was mainly thinking about the officer's safety,” he said.

The hearing officer filed a report indicating that "Officer Haley took full ownership for the accident and was honest during the hearing," and the violation was overturned.

Desmond Mills, Jr.

Mills completed his bachelor’s degree in criminal justice at West Virginia State University in 2013, and began at the Memphis Police Department in late winter 2017.

Two years later in 2019, Mills violated procedure when he dropped his personal digital assistant (PDA) on the street while entering his squad car. The device was then crushed when run over by a separate car. It was Mills' first infraction, and he immediately reported the incident to his union representative, so he received a written reprimand, according to department records.

Later that month, Mills failed to file a response to resistance form when he used physical force to take a woman down to the ground so she could be handcuffed and arrested. In the hearing in August 2021, Mills said he did not realize his actions necessitated use of the form and was again issued a written reprimand.

Emmitt Martin III

Martin graduated from Bethel University in 2015, with a degree in criminal justice and started at the department in March 2018.

In March 2019, a loaded handgun was discovered in the backseat of a squad car used by Martin and his partner. Martin claimed that he failed to do a proper pre- and post-shift inspection, and only inspected the car from the outside. During his shift, he and his partner ran a couple of traffic stops, in which the suspects were placed in the backseat where the gun was found. Additionally, the officers did not inspect the vehicle after the suspects left it, as is protocol. Martin was issued a three-day suspension without pay, according to the files.

In September 2020, Martin violated policy by mishandling a domestic abuse complaint between two sisters. The husband of one of the sisters requested a report. Martin did not take the report and said he did not believe one was required. He stated that the parties involved were intoxicated and the man's wife – the alleged victim of abuse –declined the report. The responding officers, including

Martin, threatened to arrest the involved parties if they had to take a report, records show. He was later defended by his superiors, and was issued a one-day suspension without pay.

In a 2021 performance evaluation, Martin ranked as exceeding expectations in dealing with the public. According to his lieutenant, "Officer Martin is respectful when dealing with others regardless of their sex, race, age, or rank. He approaches his calls with a positive attitude and is well received when dealing with the public. He is continually a top leader in arrests and calls, and not one person he has arrested has complained."

Apparently, the assessment did not consider the case of Glenn Harris and Demarius Hervey. Harris, 24, and Hervey, 27, said in a 2020 interview with NBC that former Memphis Police Officer Emmitt Martin III approached them at a gas station in August 2020.

The men — who say they are brothers — told the outlet they had been smoking marijuana and were in possession of an unregistered gun at the time and had tried to flee. They reportedly said they had tried to flee in Harris’ car but crashed it after eluding cops for about two miles.

When Martin caught up with them, he wrestled Harris on the ground, stuck his revolver in his face and said, “I’ll blow your face off,” the man reportedly claimed.

Other city residents have shared their experiences of other aggressive encounters

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Continued from page 13 with the unit — including 22year-old Monterrious Harris, who has filed a federal suit against the city and those same five police officers for allegedly beating him without cause just three days before they pulled Nichols over.

Justin Smith

Smith began at the department in March 2018. In January 2021, he was passing a vehicle and crashed into its rear, caus- ing it to spin and crash into a third vehicle, which had two people inside. All parties were sent to the hospital in non-critical condition.

Smith said the driver of the second vehicle went right and then left into his lane suddenly. He admitted to speeding, but said his memory was somewhat unclear due to his minor head injury from the airbag, according to a summary from the disciplinary hearing.

Smith was issued a citation, suspended for two days without pay and ordered to take remedial driver training.

Tadarrius Bean

Bean started with Memphis police in August 2020. He had no prior infractions from the department on his record.

Demands for Accountability

The Nichols family has continued to reiterate demands for police accountability. They’ve called for changes in federal law that would tighten rules on police conduct and make it easier to sue officers accused of wrongdoing. They have described what happened to Tyre as “a disgrace to this country.”

“People all around the world watched the videotape of a man, unarmed and unprovoked, being beat to death by officers of the law,” said the Rev. Al Sharpton, speaking at the Mason Temple, the church where the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his final speech the day before he was killed.

No national database exists with records of officers found guilty of misconduct who resign or are fired, meaning in a lot of cases they can apply for jobs in other police agencies and departments. There is, however, a national data system for officers who lose their certification.

“We talk a lot about gang bangers in the streets and what colors they wear,” Sharpton added. “In Memphis, it looks like they wear the blue color, that uniform.”

Perhaps most vexing to community members may be the unanswered larger question of how five, well-intentioned, young Black men who joined the police force to address the problem of police brutality disintegrate into the very instruments of that same inhumanity?.

African Diaspora Archaeologist Presents at the Newman Center

Denver Urban Spectrum celebrates Women’s History Month on March 20 at 7:30 p.m. when we welcome Dr. Alicia Odewale to the Newman Center as part of the National Geographic Live series. Dr. Odewale will share her work to uncover the stories from the city of Tulsa’s Greenwood district, which was the site of a racial attack on the local Black community back in 1921. Also known as Black Wall Street, Greenwood had one of the most prominent concentrations of African-American businesses in the United States during the early 20th century.

Historical Trauma in Tulsa from 1921-2021,” Dr. Odewale has been re-examining historical and archaeological evidence from the period, focusing not on the attack itself, but instead on the community’s trauma and triumph in its aftermath. From documenting the personal stories of Greenwood’s res-

Dr. Odewale is an African Diaspora archaeologist and an assistant professor of anthropology at The University of Tulsa. Her presentation at the University of Denver’s Newman Center will focus on a span of about 18 hours back in 1921 when a white mob attacked residents, homes and businesses in the community of Greenwood. The resilience and perseverance of those who survived the event is of great inspiration to many today.

“Greenwood was determined to rebuild, and came back bigger and better than it was before” Odewale said.

In support of her new research project, “Mapping idents to mapping the evidence of their resilience, Dr. Odewale’s work illuminates a new perspective on the impact of racism and racial violence in America, through the lens of the community that continues to survive against all odds. How the science of archaeology can be used to recover lost stories, reclaiming a narrative, and pursuing restorative justice is at the heart of this potent presentation. .

Editor’s note: For tickets and additional details, visit newmancenterpresents.com or call 303-8717720. Readers of Denver Urban Spectrum can use promo code GEOALICIA to save $10 per ticket purchased.

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For example, Comcast has an obligation to provide local news and other vital information to the public. Comcast would never assert that showing local news from Wyoming, the Arizona weather or the New Mexico legislature to Denver customers is meeting the requirement to serve our community. So why are local sports fans, paying for access to distant events and their local teams are blacked out?

In addition to being a Comcast customer, and a Denver taxpayer, I am also a Comcast shareholder. That gives me and other shareholders a voice and a vote.

Perhaps it’s time that Colorado shareholders speak up at public shareholder meetings about how we are being treated by the corporate bosses in Philadelphia.

The sad reality is that Comcast wants us Denver fans to pay a premium subscription fee for access to our local teams.

Since Denver is one of the few remaining cities that has a locally owned regional sports network – and Comcast is seeking to dramatically expand its group of similar networks – we in Denver are pawns.

Disrespecting Denver has never sat well with me. As Mayor, and ever since, I speak out when anybody is running down my town. It irked me to hear a Comcast corporate spokesperson say that few people in Denver want to watch the Avs or Nuggets on TV, when half a million people came to downtown Denver to celebrate the Avs’ Stanley Cup win last year.

We do not have to accept this treatment and we shouldn’t. I say enough is enough. Let’s get some answers.

America exerts its materialist system of values over those who have no other frame of reference. Hence that system of values has been taken up by Black people and became the measure by which we interact with each other.

You must remember that in order to maintain slavery as a system of control, the Black woman had to lose respect for the Black man who could not provide, and cleave to the white man who could. And so this has been a point of contention between the Black male and Black female since the plantation. She will say, “What can you do for me? I can do bad all by myself!” And it looks as though a lot of Black women will have to do just that.

Yours Truly, Wellington Webb

Truly Value Lies Within Editor:

Will the Black man and woman in America ever get to the place where they actually like and respect each other? If there is anything to this phenomenon, called ‘Passport Bros,’ Black men have grown tired of the behavior of Black women. I’m sure this disenchantment goes both ways; no one is happy on either side. How did we get here?

Number one: America for the most part is not a spiritual society – religious, yes – spiritual no. Without the benefit of one’s own religion and culture, one lacks the compass necessary to get one to stay on course. Since Blacks in America have only what I would call a patchwork culture… meaning a little bit taken from here, a little bit taken from there, they lack a reliable compass.

Black women are cleaving to, and exploitive and oppressive economic system that causes them to have unrealistic expectations of Black men. Black men are cleaving to a toxic value system as well. Watch any rap video and you will see what Black males value. So who is the architect of the conflict between Blacks in America?

Use then destroy. This is the enemy. This is the enemy’s agenda since the plantation.

Number two: Feminism. You’ve got to wonder. Who has been the most damaged by Feminism – white women or Black? Look at the origin of this doctrine and who has pushed it. Feminism with its negative effects on relationships appear to run counter to the order laid down by a higher intelligence. I will leave it to you to name.

If the children of Judah have rebelled against the teachings of the Most High, it is because they were bedazzled by forbidden fruit.

If Black men and Black women can come to the realization that true value lies within them and not in the things the world has to offer, perhaps their relationships will improve.

Antonius Aurora