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MUST CREDIT ***COMPLETECOLORADO.COM***March 31, 2010, by Todd Shepherd Following a recent radio appearance, Mayor John Hickenlooper appears to have offered differing versions of when he first was notified about a series of racially motivated attacks in downtown Denver. On a March 18, 2010, appearance on the "Mike Rosen Show" on 850 KOA, the Mayor said, "...very soon after that they [Denver Police Department] found that, uh, that there seemed to be some racial connection there, and that these attacks were committed, er, were connected, they sent out a, the police department sent out a press release, the first I knew of it was when that press release came out." The first press release by the Denver Police Department was issued on Sept 3, 2009. That would have placed the Mayor's original knowledge of the attacks somewhere in the latter part of August or the first part of September.  LISTEN TO THAT RESPONSE - 850 KOA audioHowever, on a December 30 appearance on the "Caplis and Silverman Show" on 630 KHOW, the Mayor said he was not notified about the attacks "until literally, just before it broke in the papers." While the first Denver Post story about the linked attacks appeared on September 4, 2009, radio host Craig Silverman sought clarification on the timeline that the Mayor was offering, asking, "...so you're saying, this story as I recall broke in November in a big way, 'racial attacks in downtown Denver' - you're saying you found out about it just a couple days before that?" Hickenlooper responded, "Yeah, the mayor's office was, was let in on this, maybe a week or so before the arrests." That would have placed Mayor Hickenlooper's original knowledge of the attacks squarely in the middle of November. LISTEN TO THAT RESPONSE - 630 KHOW audioEric Brown, Communications Director for the Mayor's office said, "The mayor was told in early September about the pattern of assaults and robberies at the same time police issued a press release. Then in November, the Mayor was told a press conference would be held to announce the arrest of 35 people and the racial motivation behind the attacks. In recent months, talk show hosts, radio callers and the Mayor have not always been talking about the same dates and events when discussing the Lodo attacks." News of the series of attacks was originally broken in September 2009 by Rick Sallinger of CBS4. However, it wasn't until November that the announcement of arrests was made and a more comprehensive picture of the crimes emerged, at which time radio-host Dan Caplis unequivocally upbraided the Mayor. "So let me get this straight," Caplis said as he opened the show on November 24th. "You've got these roving gangs, you know, violently assaulting primarily white males and Latino males in LoDo? And nobody tells us? I mean, hey, how could this happen? Whose fault is it? Somebody's head has got to roll here. This is wrong." Later in the show, Caplis further defined his statements as saying he didn't suspect wrongdoing by the Denver Police Department or Chief Gerry Whitman, but suggested that someone higher up in the administration had made an unforgivable error. Additionally, documents obtained by CompleteColorado.com show that Denver Police Chief Whitman delivered a face-to-face briefing on the LoDo attacks to Mayor John Hickenlooper in preparation for the December 30 radio appearance on the "Caplis and Silverman" radio show. The same documents also show that the briefing was the Mayor's only in-person meeting with either Chief Whitman or Manager of Safety Al LaCabe to discuss the string of racially motivated attacks that plagued Denver over that summer.  On December 30, more than a month after Caplis first aired his criticisms, Mayor Hickenlooper was scheduled to appear on the radio show, with Caplis on vacation. Still, documents show that even with his major critic off the show for that day, the Mayor carved out a 15 minute time slot earlier in the morning in order to be briefed by Chief Whitman. Co-host Craig Silverman did ask the Mayor about his response to the public safety issue presented by the attacks. Documents or notes made by Chief Whitman in preparation for, or as a result of, the Dec. 30th briefing were not released. The Denver Department of Safety explained, "There is a continuing investigation and prosecution by the Office of the District Attorney into the subject matter of the meeting held on December 30, 2009. The public interest in thorough and complete investigation and successful prosecution of the individuals charged in the cases outweighs any public purpose to be served by release of any documents or records contained in the criminal case files at this time." A similar request for documents from the Mayor's office regarding the briefing was denied under the "work product" exclusion of the Colorado Open Records Act. Sabrina D'Agosta, Deputy Communications director with the Mayor's office, said the notes created for the briefing by Communication Director Eric Brown did not contain anything that would be harmful to release. But at the same time, D'Agosta said that attorneys for the Mayor do not want to set precedent for future records requests by releasing something they believe should be properly withheld under the law. D'Agosta did indicate that an attachment to the notes created by Communications Director Brown was the September 3 press release from DPD. Even after the Mayor's appearance on the show, Caplis has maintained that the administration has not put forth a comprehensive and accurate timeline detailing how the administration responded to the unfolding events of the summer of 2009. *** CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to CompleteColorado.com founder Todd Shepherd discuss the report on the "Caplis and Silverman" show... CLICK HERE TO LISTEN to the discussion on 630 KHOW's "Peter Boyles" show... ***END OF REPORT*** |
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