A former police officer in Colorado was given a sentence for not stopping the violent arrest of a woman with dementia.
A former police officer in Colorado who did nothing when another officer arrested a 73-year-old woman with dementia in a rough way was sentenced to 45 days in jail and three years of probation on Friday.
The second officer to be sentenced for Karen Garner’s arrest is Daria Jalali.
Local TV station KCNC-TV says she is also the first former officer to be found guilty under Colorado’s new failure-to-intervene law.
Austin Hopp, a former police officer in Colorado, caught Garner in June 2020 after she left a Walmart in Loveland, about 50 miles north of Denver, without paying for about $14 worth of goods.
Garner has dementia and sensory aphasia, which make it hard for her to understand and communicate. She is a mother of three and a grandmother of nine. When she was caught, she was 73 years old.
Garner says over and over again in the shocking body cam footage of the incident that she was trying to go home.
She can also be seen with her face on the ground, her arm behind her back, and some wildflowers she picked up on the way still in her hand.
Jalali tells Garner to “stand up!” after she has already been cuffed. We won’t keep you here.”
She pleaded guilty in June to a charge of failing to help, which could have put her in jail for up to 60 days.
The 28-year-old woman was sentenced on Friday by 8th Judicial District Court Judge Joshua Lehman. The judge called the case “incomprehensible.”
During the sentencing, Lehman told Jalali, “It’s just sad that this happened, and it was made worse by the choices you made over the course of the two hours you were with her.” “You have to understand that.”
John Steward, Garner’s son, told the Loveland Reporter-Herald on Friday morning that Jalali had “every chance” to stop being cruel and do the right thing, but he didn’t.
Jalali’s ex-girlfriend pleaded guilty to second-degree assault in March.
He was then given a five-year prison sentence.
