Excessive force lawsuit takes aim at 15 officers, Denver police chief

A Boulder man is suing 15 Denver Police Department officers and Chief Paul Pazen for excessive force.

Mikey Jacobs, 25, said he was the victim of a sexual assault when he claims one officer rammed a 36-inch long baton up his anus on the night of July 29, 2020.

“They punched me in the face, he punched in my butt hole, he tried to sodomize me,” is what Jacobs can be heard screaming on police body camera video obtained by the Problem Solvers.

Jacobs was attending a protest at Lincoln Park across from the state Capitol, where homeless advocates were objecting to the sweep of a homeless camp. Protesters felt the homeless hadn’t been given adequate time to move on.

Bodycam from that night shows a team of SWAT officers running toward the fence where Jacobs was standing and tackling him to the ground.

“I was thrown to the ground, my helmet ripped off my head, my face struck several times, a baton used in ways that shouldn’t be ever used,” said Jacobs, who added he thought he was being mugged at first because police came from behind him and issued no verbal warning.

‘This is a way to hold the officers individually responsible’

“This was one of the most brutal acts of violence I’ve seen in my career,” said Benjamin DeGolia, a civil rights attorney with the Rathod Mohamedbhai law firm who represents Jacobs.

DeGolia said he named Chief Pazen in his lawsuit because he’s responsible for the training of his officers. In addition, DeGolia filed the lawsuit in state court instead of federal court — where most civil rights cases typically end up — because he wanted to take advantage of a new police accountability measure passed by Colorado lawmakers in 2020.

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