"Necessary Force"

(Minor clarification below)

“I always thought police were nothing but good and werethere to protect people,” testifies Elizabeth Polak, a registered nurse fromPhoenix. Her view of the State’s enforcement caste changed dramatically as aresult of what she witnessed in Denver on the evening of March 25, 2008.

Polak, returning to her apartment following her daily jog,saw a man and a woman having an unremarkable conversation near the entrance tothe building.  Two police officersappeared – a development always pregnant with trouble – and approached thecouple. From a distance of about 100 feet, Polak saw the officers stride purposefullytoward the man, who was later identified as James Moore.

“The officers did not stop and have a conversation with Mr.Moore,” she later recounted in a sworn affidavit. “The officers walked up tohim and instantaneously punched Mr. Moore. Prior to being punched, there was noresistance or non-cooperation on his part. Mr. Moore was not given the chanceto comply with any orders, if any were given. It appeared that the police wereon a mission to walk up to Mr. Moore and punch him.” 

Shocked and terrified by the assault on Moore, the woman –his girlfriend, Julie Gomez – repeatedly exclaimed: “You have the wrong people!”Moore, who had been knocked to the ground, did what he could to avoid ordeflect the blows directed at him by the assailants. 

The attack on Moore “appeared to be completely unprovokedand at no time was Mr. Moore fighting back,” Polak – who has never spoken withthe victim – related in her affidavit. “At no time did Mr. Moore try to attack anofficer. At no time did Mr. Moore try to reach for an officer’s weapon. Mr.Moore was surprisingly calm.” 

“I did try to stay calm,” Moore, a Special Forces combatveteran, recalled to Pro Libertate. “Ijust tried to assure myself that the beating would eventually stop, and I justhad to endure it patiently. But it didn’t stop.” 

The assailants, Officers Shawn Miller and John Robledo ofthe Denver Police Department, had been summoned to the apartment building by anoise complaint from a neighbor after Moore – who has been diagnosed withPost-Traumatic Stress Disorder – had a somewhat tumultuous breakdown uponlearning of a friend’s death in Afghanistan. (Moore, who was a Ron Pauldelegate in 2008, has become an unabashed opponent of the Empire.) After decidinga change of scenery was in order, Moore and his girlfriend called a cab andwent outside to wait. An hour later, the cops arrived.

“We were waiting outside the building, when I suddenly hear pounding and rushing footsteps -- then next thing youknow Miller is in my face shouting, `Get your hands out of your pockets! Showme some ID!’” Moore told Pro Libertate.“I said, `Why. what's going on' -- and I was almost simultaneously knocked to the ground before I could finish." Once the beating began, Moore tried to identify himself and point out he was a disabled Vet -- but this availed him nothing.

Moore hit the ground hard – and went very still. Moorerecalled that there was a sudden, brief pause in the assault after blood gushedfrom his face onto the sidewalk. 

“It seems to me that they knew at that point they’d screwedup,” he said. “It was as if, after a second or two, they decided to make itlook as if I had been resisting arrest – which meant that they had to use agreat deal of `necessary force’ to subdue me.” Robledo immediately hog-tied Moore, binding his wrists and ankles in a restraint device -- while Miller continued the assault. When Miller’s hands grew wearyand his knuckles became sore, he extracted a small club and began hittingthe victim in the neck and head.

“I stood in terror watching the beating for about 7-10minutes,” Polak attested. The attack lasted long enough for the young woman toenter her apartment and get to a window. 

During that time, the assailants -- seeking to sustain the fiction that they were subduing adangerous, resisting criminal -- called for "backup." A thugscrum of about ten officers quicklycongealed at the scene. As many as a half-dozen of them helping to restrain theunresisting Moore, who was already hog-tied and remained conscious for roughly half of the amount of time described by Polak.

"Every time I tried to say something, they raised my leg higher into the air behind my back, causing my diaphragm to push into my lungs to shut off my air supply," Moore pointed out. "I could not breathe out, much less breathe in." Even though he was helpless, hog-tied, face-down on the concrete, and suffocating, the police continued to beat him unstintingly while chanting the preferred refrain of the rapist: "Stop resisting! Stop resisting!"

“From the windows inside the complex, I saw Mr. Moore lyinglifeless in his own blood,” Polak narrates. “Officers were still on top of himstriking him with their fists. He was not moving and did not look like he wasbreathing. His face looked caved in.”

Eventually one of the officers – obviously the brightest ofa very dim lot – noticed that 

Moore appeared to be dead, and began toadminister CPR. An ambulance pulled up shortly thereafter and Moore’sapparently lifeless body was taken to the hospital. 

At one point, that body wasliterally lifeless, in a clinical sense: Moore “flatlined”on the sidewalk and had to be medically revived by the EMTs. Polak, lookingat Moore from a distance with the eyes of an RN, couldn’t tell if the victimhad survived: “I called my mom and asked if she would call the police toinquire whether Mr. Moore was alive or dead.”

It’s doubtful that Denver’s, ahem, Finest would have cared much about the fate of a mere Mundane likeJames Moore. The officer who led the unprovoked assault certainly wasn’t troubledby what he had just done.

“After the ambulance left, a fireman used a fire hose towash the blood off the sidewalk,” Polak notes. I also noticed that the sameofficer that was beating him with the club was wiping Mr. Moore’s blood off ofhis club.” 

Swaggering coward Shawn Miller bullies a small, disabled woman.

 That officer’s name, once again, is Shawn Miller. Two daysbefore he committed what was very nearly an act of aggravated homicide againstJames Moore,he and his partner severely beat a pedestrian named Jason Graber, leaving him with a broken knee and a permanent disability.

Concerned that Miller’s reckless driving was putting pedestrians atrisk, Graber gestured for the officer to slow down. This constituted theunforgivable offense called “contempt of cop” – and Graber was brutalized asan act of “street justice.”

In a November 2010 incident in a secure apartment building,Miller cursed at, browbeat, threatened, battered, and abducted a disabled womannamed Doreen Salazar because of her perceived tardiness in buzzing him and hispartner into the residential area. Salazar, who had been advised by the apartment managers never to grantaccess to anyone she didn’t know, and who had difficulty identifying theofficers as police, paused for perhaps a second or two before letting them in.It’s a tragedy that she didn’t understand that police are the most dangerous variety of strangers she's likely to confront.

Security camera video shows Miller snarling at the small,middle-aged woman, pushing her, and cornering her near an elevator. He thenslammed her face-first into the elevator door, handcuffed her, and held her inhis patrol car for about ten minutes – a sadistic act that served no purposeother than to terrorize an uppity Mundane who had failed to respect Miller’ssupposed authority.

“Did you learn your lesson?” a smirking Miller sneered atSalazar after releasing her from the handcuffs.

“Yes, I learned my lesson,” Salazar – who is more of a man thanlittle Shawn will ever be -- replied. “I learned not to open a door for a copever again.”

While that is a sound and commendable policy, it’s inadequateto deal with the threat posed by police officers to those citizens – like James Moore– who actually venture outside their homes on occasion.

Moore underwent a lengthy and expensive hospitalization thatincluded back surgery. While recuperating from the nearly fatal beating, Moorehad to deal with the expense, frustration, and stress resulting from thespurious charges filed against him by the thugs who had beaten him. Inkeeping with standard procedure in such matters, the victim of thisunprovoked, and nearly fatal, attack was charged with Felony Assault on aPolice Officer and Felony Disarming of a Police Officer. It took two years forthe charges to be dismissed.  

Moore in rehab following back surgery.

In March 2010, Moore filed a federal lawsuit against Miller,Robledo, and Denver’s municipal government. During depositions last December,Miller and his boyfriends continued to peddle the fiction that they had subdueda violent, dangerous suspect.

“They’re trying to make me look like Rambo – an unhinged SpecialForces veteran who is a danger to the public,” comments Moore. “Yes, I didserve in a Special Forces unit that saw combat in Afghanistan, but I was acomputer nerd. I was never part of an assault team.”

After returning to the United States in 2004, Moore sufferedfrom combat-related psychological problems -- including post-traumatic stress disorder. In 2006, he sought help from the VA, and was turned down. Shortly thereafter, he attempted suicide. 

By 2008, however, “I was healthy again, and looking forward tolive. Julie and I planned to make a life together, but that ended the nightthat the cops attacked me.” Julie, whose only involvement in the March 25, 2008 incident was to be a witness to the Denver PD's gang assault on her boyfriend, was abducted by the police and slapped with several entirely contrived charges, including assault on an officer, resisting arrest, and "obstruction." While in jail following her arrest, Julie was told that the police would have the couple evicted from their apartment -- and they made good on the threat.

Julie spent the next two years fighting the fraudulent and vindictive charges against her. Although James and Julie are still on cordial terms, theaccumulated trauma of the evening and her subsequent incarceration ended therelationship.

“In his testimony, Miller said that `This was the worstfight I’ve ever been in. This guy must have been trained in martial arts,’”Moore reflects. “He also said that I was a threat because he couldn’t see myhands and I was wearing a hoodie. Neither of those statements is true. I never had my hands in my pockets, and I was actually wearing aNorth Face jacket, not the notorious hoodie.”

Between his medical bills and his legal expenses, Moore –who pulled in a salary north of $100,000 working in Silicon Valley before goingto war – is destitute, living with his father in Oklahoma. He was able togather sufficient funding to travel to southeast Asia in search of alternativetherapies for his back injuries – treatment that cost a great deal less thanconventional methods in the U.S. While the prospect of relocating to Asia wasattractive, Moore points out, “I had to come back here and take care ofbusiness in court.”

Last September, the Denver City Council approved a $225,000 taxpayer settlementwith Jason Graber. U.S. District Judge John Kane, who had dismissed Graber’slawsuit last March, reversed his decision a few months later after it wasdemonstrated that the Denver PD and the municipal government had refused toturn over documents dealing with excessive force complaints – many of them filedagainst Shawn Miller, who remains on duty and has never faced disciplinaryaction of any kind.

Denver’spolice department is amongthe most notoriously abusive agencies of its kind in the Mountain West. Twoyears ago, in the context of growing public outrage over accumulating episodesof criminal assault by police, ChiefGerald Whitman told the local NBC affiliate that "thepolice department is under control" and that it actually receives feweruse-of-force complaints than departments in most other major cities. 

Apparentlythe public is expected to confide in the Chief’s uncorroborated assurances, becausehe is determined to preserve the institutional opacity of his department.

Last fall, Judge Kane issued an order demandingthat the police department turn over all documents dealing with excessive forcecomplaints over the previous eight years, including disciplinary records.Despite fines of $5,000 a day, and Kane’s threat to dispatch U.S. Marshals tocollect the files, the Denver PD and the ruling clique it serves have refusedto comply.  [Clarification: The department, while not in full compliance with the order, has turned over a small fraction of the documents it is required to provide.]

“The people behind this are simply trying to wear me down,”Moore observes. “They want to outlast me, and they have taxpayer money at theirdisposal, while I have next to nothing. They probably assume that I’ll getdesperate and they’ll be able to settle for pennies on the dollar. I, on theother hand, am determined to be the guy who doesn’t cash out – the one whoholds out for real accountability, which means the exposure of all the corruptand criminal things this department has done to innocent people.”

“You know, before this happened I trusted the police,” Mooreconcludes in an ironic echo of the witness who saw him beaten and left for deadon the sidewalk. His experience is just one illustration – albeit an uncommonlyinfuriating one – of the fact that no informed and rational person should evermake that mistake. 

My sincere thanks, once again...

... for every generous donation made to keep Pro Libertate up and running. The books should start arriving by the end of this week. Once again: Everyone who donates $20 or more will receive a personalized copy of Liberty In Eclipse. 

Your help is urgently needed, and deeply appreciated. Thank you!

VERY IMPORTANT: To avoid any possible confusion, please understand that that I am not soliciting donations for James Moore's legal case against the Denver PD.


Those interested in following James's legal struggles should check out the new Facebook page "Justice for Jimmy," which will be regularly updated with information about his case and similar outrages.

Please be sure to check out Republic magazine -- which is updated daily.

Dum spiro, pugno!