A jury awarded $19.7 million to six bystanders who were wounded when an officer with the Denver Police Department opened fire at an armed man in 2022, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said on Saturday.
The decision on Friday in the civil case came after an eight-day trial in Denver District Court, according to Omeed M. Azmoudeh, the plaintiffs’ lawyer.
On July 17, 2022, Brandon Ramos was a police officer working in a unit to prevent gun violence on weekend nights in downtown Denver. Mr. Ramos and two other officers witnessed a man pull out a gun near a large crowd outside a bar at closing time, according to court papers.
The three officers fired at the man, Jordan Waddy, who was 21 years old at the time. Two officers, who were directly in front of Mr. Waddy, fired a combined six shots, “fearing for their lives and those of their fellow officers,” according to court papers.
From their positions, there was no one behind Mr. Waddy and the two officers saw only a brick wall and the bar.
The two officers standing directly in front of Mr. Waddy when he pulled the gun were not prosecuted, because the Denver district attorney at the time, Beth McCann, and a grand jury found their actions were legally justified, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Mr. Ramos, who was positioned at Mr. Waddy’s side, fired his gun twice while facing a large crowd, injuring at least the six bystanders who filed the lawsuit.
Court records said that Mr. Waddy had not turned to face Mr. Ramos with the firearm. Mr. Waddy did not open fire, according to court records.
A Denver District Court judge sentenced Mr. Waddy to 30 months in prison in 2024 for possessing a weapon as a previous offender.
Mr. Ramos was indicted by a grand jury in 2023 on 14 different counts, including third-degree assault, reckless endangerment and prohibited use of a weapon.
The indictment called Mr. Ramos’s decision to shoot “reckless, unreasonable, and unnecessary for the purpose of protecting himself or other officers and he consciously disregarded an unjustifiable risk of injury to the crowd behind Mr. Waddy.”
Mr. Ramos agreed to plead guilty in 2024 to a charge of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor. The plea deal meant he was spared prison time but was put on probation, and made ineligible to serve as a police officer. He resigned from the department in February 2024, the police said.
“The jury heard what was important,” Mr. Azmoudeh said of the civil case. “These folks matter. They are humans living in the community and in an instant had their lives changed by a decision that Officer Ramos should not have made.”
Mr. Ramos was named as the defendant in the lawsuit, Mr. Azmoudeh said.
“Part of the post-verdict proceedings, including appeals, will be about Denver’s obligation to pay,” he said. “Legally obligated or not, we encourage Denver to pay the verdict to six innocent people who received life changing injuries at the hands of the city’s own officer, in the heart of the city.”
The Denver Police Department declined to comment on Saturday. A lawyer for Mr. Ramos could not be reached on Saturday.
Mr. Azmoudeh said there was a “huge sense of relief” among the victims after hearing the jury’s verdict, but added that their feelings were complex.
The victims bear the emotional and physical scars that remind them of the shooting, he said. Two of them continue to suffer from their gunshot wounds, he said, affecting the way one walks and another moves an arm.
“Going into ordinary spaces that we don’t think twice about as everyday people is difficult,” he said of his clients, adding that some of them feel anxious in public spaces and suffer from post-traumatic stress.
Ashley Ahn covers breaking news for The Times from New York.
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