Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
A Colorado police officer has been arrested on felony charges after a video showed him using his pistol to beat a man he was attempting to arrest, choking him and threatening to kill him, and a second officer was also arrested after authorities say she failed to stop her colleague as required by a new police accountability law.
Body camera footage was shown Tuesday at a news conference of the Friday incident that happened in the Denver suburb of Aurora, whose police department has been plagued by numerous police misconduct cases in recent years including the 2018 death of Elijah McClain.
The man repeatedly says "You're killing me, bro," as Aurora police Officer John Haubert holds him down and strikes him, the video shows.
"If you move, I will shoot you," Haubert says. The officer says repeatedly "Stop fighting," as the man cries and gasps for air.
Video shows Haubert yelling at the man to roll over on his stomach and show his hands to which the man complies.
"I need water," the man cries as the body camera footage comes to an end. The man was hospitalized after he was arrested on suspicion of trespassing.
Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson called the arrest a "very despicable act" at the press conference.
"This video will shock your conscience. It is very disturbing," said Wilson, who took over the department last year. "We're disgusted. We're angry. This is not police work. We don't train this."
Haubert is under investigation over possible attempted first-degree assault, second-degree assault and felony menacing in connection with the Friday incident, according to arrest warrant affidavits written by an Aurora police detective and obtained by The Denver Post.
Officer Francine Martinez faces charges over allegedly not intervening to try to stop Haubert's purported use of force, the documents say. A new Colorado police accountability law requires law enforcement to intervene when they witness abuses of force.
Both officers have turned themselves in. It wasn't immediately known if they had attorneys.
Haubert and Martinez were dispatched Friday afternoon to investigate a trespassing report. The officers encountered three people who had outstanding felony warrants and tried to arrest them. Two ran way, the documents say.
Haubert drew his pistol and pointed it at the third suspect, who did not resist. Haubert allegedly grabbed the back of the man's neck, pressed his gun against the man's head, then struck the man's head with his pistol at least seven times while ordering him to lie on his stomach, the documents say.
A still image taken from an officer's body camera footage and included in the affidavit allegedly shows Haubert choking the man. On the footage, Haubert told a sergeant after the arrest, "I was going to shoot him but I didn't know if I had a round in it or not," the documents state. Haubert also said blood on the man was from "pistol-whipping him."
Aurora's troubled police department has been involved in several abuse-of-force incidents in recent years. The most egregious was the 2018 death of McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after being confronted by police responding to a citizen's call about a "suspicious" person in their neighborhood.
Wilson became the first female to permanently lead the Aurora Police Department when she got the job in August 2020. At the time, the department was looking to regain public trust following a tumultuous year since the death of McClain, whom officers stopped on the street and put into a chokehold.
Wilson, who is white, has 23 years of experience with the Police Department in Colorado's third-largest city, a diverse community east of Denver. She got the job over three other nationwide finalists -- all Black men.
Colorado's Legislature passed a bill last year that, among other things, requires all officers to use body cameras by July 2023, bans chokeholds, limits potentially lethal uses of force and removes qualified immunity from police, potentially exposing officers to lawsuits for their actions in use of force cases.
The 2020 law also bars police from using deadly force against suspects they believe are armed unless there is an imminent threat of a weapon being used. It requires officers to intervene when seeing use of excessive force by colleagues and to report such cases to superiors.
Lawmakers strengthened that law this year to, in part, encourage more officers to use their body cameras and promote "de-escalation techniques" in police encounters.
Wilson said she moved quickly to put the officers on leave and release the body camera footage to shed light on an incident she said is "anomaly" in a department trying to do better. She apologized to the man who was beaten up.
"This is not the Aurora police department," Wilson said. "This was criminal."
--------
Associated Press writer Thomas Peipert contributed to this report.
Nieberg is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
The Canada Revenue Agency announced Thursday it will not require 'bare trust' reporting from Canadians that it introduced for the 2024 tax season, just four days before the April 2 deadline.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Nearly 20 hours after a man climbed and remained perched on top of the Reconciliation Bridge in downtown Calgary, the situation came to a peaceful resolution.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
A spokesman for a regional Muslim advocacy group says Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre's stance on the Israel-Hamas war could complicate his party's relationship with Muslim Canadians.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.