75% of Denver Cops Aren't Turning on Body Cams in Use of Force Contacts, This is Why

By Matt Agorist
The Free Thought Project
Mar. 14, 2015

Denver, CO — A local news team in Denver has obtained video twice in just one week of officers brutalizing individuals. Both time the officers were disciplined after it was exposed.

The latest cop to be caught using excessive force on an arrestee is officer Chad Sinnema. Sinnema was suspended for a mere four days after using force that could have killed a man back in August.

CBS 4 obtained video from a Denver police department body camera that was rolling Aug. 22, 2014, when officers apprehended a suspect in a domestic violence incident in downtown Denver.

During the arrest, the suspect resisted, according to police, by kicking and pushing at officers. However, that is not seen on video, nor were any of the officers injured. However, it was after he was subdued when Sinnema’s use of excessive force came out.

According to Sinnema, his knee was on the back of this man’s shoulders when he was holding him down.

“I initially held him down by placing my knee on the back of his upper shoulders … I again applied pressure to his upper shoulders with my knee …” Sinnema reported.

However, the video seems to show that for several minutes, Sinnema actually had his knee on the back of the man’s head and neck. At one point during the video, once the cops’ loosened their grip on the suspect, he shouts “I’m trying to breathe … trying to live … trying to breathe.”

The disciplinary letter states “Officer Sinnema violated the departmental rules and regulations when he restrained the arrestee by placing his knee on the suspect’s neck. Officer Sinnema had other force options available that did not require the level of force he used. Officer Sinnema used ‘inappropriate force in making an arrest or dealing with a prisoner.’ ”

A report conducted by the Office of the Independent Monitor, suggests that the videos we see, account for only a portion of the actual brutality.

In their report, the OIM examined a six-month period of body camera usage within the DPD. During that six-month trial run for body cameras in the Denver Police Department, only about one out of every four use-of-force incidents involving officers was recorded.

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