Carroll: Denver's psychic safety czar - The Denver Post

Carroll: Denver's psychic safety czar - The Denver Post

John Hickenlooper must be wondering how he happened to appoint a psychic as Denver's manager of safety. When the mayor brought Ron Perea on board this summer, he seemed like a no-nonsense veteran of the Secret Service, a practical fellow who would carry on the disciplinary reforms of now-retired Al LaCabe.

Who knew Perea dabbled in mind-reading? Or that he would use this skill to justify a wrist slap for two cops who almost certainly lied in official reports to justify the takedown and sapping of a man they arrested?

No wonder Hickenlooper has asked the FBI to review the case. You would, too, if your longtime efforts to set a higher bar on police discipline were jeopardized by your new safety manager's first high-profile decision.

Perea acknowledges "inaccuracies" in both officers' reports of an arrest they made outside a LoDo nightclub. But Perea says he "personally views(s) the inconsistencies more as misperceptions" that do not rise to the level of "departing from the truth."

The officers may have told a cock-and-bull story, in other words, but please don't question their honesty. They basically meant what they said, Perea concludes.

It was a mere misperception for Officer Devin Sparks to believe that Michael DeHerrera "was about 1 foot away" and refused "numerous times to get back" before being arrested, even though that wasn't the case.

It was another misperception for Sparks to say DeHerrera "made a fist and spun to his left attempting to strike me in the face with a closed right fist," even though DeHerrera did no such thing.

And it was equally a misperception for Officer Randy Murr to assert repeatedly that DeHerrera attempted to strike Sparks, even though a police surveillance camera demonstrates clearly that he did not.

These misperceptions were not deliberate lies, in the psychic Perea's opinion, in part because the officers had to write their reports "immediately after the occurrence, without the benefit of reviewing a video multiple times and slowing it down."

If an officer's report matches the reality recorded on video, he's obviously telling the truth. But if his report fails to match the recording, he's also telling the truth, under Perea's standard, because he didn't have a chance to review the video first. Talk about a win-win!

Memory does, of course, play tricks on us all, and perhaps especially when it involves events occurring on a rapid-fire clock. But the reason Independent Monitor Richard Rosenthal called for the officers to be fired is their accounts strayed from reality not just on details but on core facts. You may not agree with Rosenthal's recommendation, but docking them just three days' pay for false reports and unnecessary force is equivalent to a finger-wagging.