3 men sue Denver after officers shot them in the eye with less-lethal munitions during 2020 protests

Three men filed lawsuits against the city of Denver this week alleging police needlessly and recklessly shot them in the eye with less-lethal munitions during the 2020 racial justice protests, leaving two of them partially blind.

The three men — Jax Feldmann, Nicolas Orlin and Shawn Murphy — allege in two lawsuits that they were shot in the face without warning while they were unarmed and not acting violently or destroying property.

The lawsuits allege officers intentionally aimed at peoples’ faces and fired without warning — problems also identified by the city’s top law enforcement watchdog in a scathing report criticizing how police handled the 2020 protests.

“The city’s failure to constrain its officers in any way despite being aware of the many injuries its officers had caused and were causing during the protests is clear evidence of the city’s utter and deliberate indifference to the customary use of excessive and disproportionate force toward protesters,” attorney Birk Baumgartner, who filed both lawsuits, wrote in the complaints.

The Denver Police Department and the Denver City Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the lawsuits, citing a policy to not discuss pending litigation.

The two federal civil rights lawsuits add to at least nine others filed on behalf of more than 60 people injured or arrested during the protests — and civil rights attorneys have said more lawsuits are in the works. The Denver City Council on Monday approved a $500,000 settlement to a student whom police shot in the eye with a foam bullet.

Feldmann wasn’t participating in the protests when he was shot in the face with a pepperball on May 30, 2020, a lawsuit filed Tuesday on his behalf states. He was walking back to his car after meeting with a friend when a truck carrying Denver police officers passed him at the corner of East Colfax Avenue and Grant Street. Feldmann yelled “We’re all Americans!” at the truck as it passed.

Surveillance video from a nearby property provided to The Denver Post by Baumgartner shows Feldmann yelling at the truck seconds before a projectile blasts near his head and explodes on the ground nearby. Feldmann, 21 years old at the time, grabbed his eye as it passed.

Doctors determined that Feldmann’s eye was damaged beyond repair and would eventually have to be removed, the lawsuit states. The injury permanently altered his appearance and limited his depth perception and peripheral vision.

A Denver police internal affairs investigation found that Feldmann was struck in the face with a pepperball, a copy of the investigatory report shows, but investigators could not identify which officer on the truck fired the weapon.

Several officers on the truck had their body cameras turned off at the time of the incident. One officer’s body camera captures Feldmann yelling at the truck and the sound of pepperball guns being fired, but does not show Feldmann being struck or who fired at him. None of the officers issued a warning before firing the less-lethal munitions, the video shows.

Baumgartner, however, believes that Officer Diego Archuleta fired the pepperball at Feldmann. He was the only officer armed with a pepperball gun in a position to fire toward Feldmann at the time of the incident, Baumgartner alleged in the lawsuit, which names Archuleta and 11 other officers as defendants.

“While Plaintiff was unarmed, non-threatening and non-confrontational, Defendant Archuleta and the other Defendant Officers on the DPD vehicle were armed and fully outfitted in protective riot gear, and they were safely on-board the moving police vehicle that enabled Defendant Archuleta to approach, aim, shoot Plaintiff in the eye and incapacitate him, and quickly ride away without ever being at any risk of harm by Plaintiff,” the lawsuit states.

Archuleta is one of the two Denver officers formally disciplined for their actions during protests. He was suspended without pay for six days for using pepper spray on a woman sitting in her car who also did not pose a threat to officers, which he admitted was a mistake.

Archuleta resigned from the department Jan. 6, Denver police spokesman Jay Casillas said. Court records show he pleaded guilty to a felony charge of attempted strangulation in Denver District Court that same day.

“We’re happy to see that the city is making reasonable settlements with people they’ve injured and we certainly hope they’ll do the same with Jax, who was just an innocent bystander in this whole manner,” Baumgartner said.

Orlin and Murphy also suffered eye injuries during the protests and on Thursday jointly sued the city alleging police violated their civil rights.

Orlin attempted to cover a tear gas canister deployed near the intersection of Lincoln Street and East Colfax Avenue about 6:30 p.m. May 30, 2020, according to the lawsuit. Police shot Orlin in the face with a less-lethal projectile, rendering him unconscious. The injury rendered him permanently partially blind in his left eye.

Murphy was also standing at the intersection at the same time as Orlin, though the men did not know each other. Police shot Murphy in the face with a projectile without warning, the lawsuit alleges. Murphy underwent emergency surgery in his left eye that evening. Surgeons were able to save his eye, though his vision is permanently diminished and his face is permanently scarred, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit alleges officers “purposefully aimed and fired their weapons, loaded with one of these hard projectiles, directly at the plaintiffs’ respective heads, faces and eyes.”

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