Colorado Man Describes Injury From Police Confrontation
DENVER (CBS4) - On the sixth day, hundreds, if not approximately a thousand, protesters participated in a peaceful demonstration in downtown Denver on Tuesday. They marched through the streets and ended at the steps of the State Capitol building as they have the past several nights.
CBS4's Dominic Garcia noted the calmness of the crowd, calling it "mellow." The hope is the mood stays the same after the sun goes down.
Denver is under a 9 p.m. curfew.
Among the protesters Garcia spoke with, one man, named Cody, shared a story not shared often so far. He's protested the last several nights, but was also caught up in some violence.
"Saturday at around 6 o'clock, police started to move in, and that's when things got hectic. So around this time already there was tear gas and projectiles being deployed at that time," Cody said. "Protests in the last two days that I've been a part of have been extremely peaceful and there's been no chaos."
As CBS4 reported, police have arrested more than 300 people since demonstrations began on Thursday. Many of those were for curfew violations. Others were much more serious charges.
Garcia asked Cody about a specific incident in which he found himself in the middle of the violence.
"They (the police) were deploying tear gas, and there were homeless people at Capitol Hill that didn't choose to be part of these protests, but they're here. So I grabbed a cone to cover a tear gas canister, and I guess I got too close to comfort for the officers," he told Garcia. "So, I took a rubber, what I call a slug... and it got me right in the... yea. I was about 15 feet away."
Cody showed CBS4 bruising to his hip. He said he realized what happened about 10 minutes later.
He said the Denver Police Department's use of force on Saturday "seemed excessive."
"You'd have 99.9% of protesters including everyone standing at the front line who were peaceful. And then you would have one or two demonstrators back behind you throw a rock or something at the officers, and then that would prompt them to retaliate."
He said he started hearing tear gas being deployed at around noon on Saturday until the early morning hours on Sunday. Cody went on to say since then, police response and the protests in general have been great.
