FILE – Kyle Vinson, left, stands with his attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2021, in Denver. Aurora Police Officer John Haubert is on trial over a violent arrest of Vinson and opening statements are expected Tuesday, April 2, 2024. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File) 
FILE – This undated photo provided by the Aurora Police Department shows Colorado police Officer John Haubert, who was arrested after he allegedly beat a man with his pistol, choked him and threatened to kill him while attempting an arrest, Friday, July 23, 2021. Haubert is on trial over the violent arrest and opening statements are expected Tuesday, April 2, 2024. (Courtesy of Aurora Police Department via AP, File) 
FILE – In this screen grab taken from July 23, 2021, police body camera video provided by the Aurora Police Department, Officer John Haubert points a gun to the head of Kyle Vinson during an arrest in Aurora, Colo. Haubert is on trial over the violent arrest and opening statements are expected Tuesday, April 2, 2024. (Aurora Police Department via AP, File) 
In this July 23, 2021 video image released by the Aurora Police Department shows police body camera footage of Aurora Officer John Haubert pointing a gun during an arrest of an unidentified man in Aurora, Colo. The police officer has been arrested after video showed him using his pistol to beat a man he was trying to take into custody, choking him and threatening to kill him, while another officer was accused of failing to stop her colleague as required by a new police accountability law passed during racial injustice protests last year. Body camera footage was released Tuesday, July 27, of the arrest in the Denver suburb of Aurora. (Aurora Police Department via AP) 
Aurora Police body cam screen grabs that investigators say show Aurora Police Officer John Haubert pistol whipping and strangling a trespassing suspect July 23, 2012. Haubert faces felony charges in the incident. 
Aurora Police body cam screen grabs that investigators say show Aurora Police Officer John Haubert pistol whipping and strangling a trespassing suspect July 23, 2012. Haubert faces felony charges in the incident. 
Aurora Police body cam screen grabs that investigators say show Aurora Police Officer John Haubert pistol whipping and strangling a trespassing suspect July 23, 2012. Haubert and another officer face felony charges in the incident. 
Aurora Police body cam screen grabs that investigators say show Aurora Police Officer John Haubert pistol whipping and strangling a trespassing suspect July 23, 2012. Haubert and another officer face felony charges in the incident.
CENTENNIAL | An Aurora police officer used excessive and unreasonable force in the 2021 arrest of a Black man, pointing his gun at his head, repeatedly hitting the man in the head with a gun and strangling him for 39 seconds, a prosecutor said Tuesday during opening statements in the ex-officer’s trial.”
You can see the fear on his face,” Jade Hoisington told jurors after playing body camera video showing the violent arrest of Kyle Vinson by John Haubert, who at the time was a police officer in the Denver suburb of Aurora. He also showed photos of the welts left on Vinson’s head.
Later, Vinson testified that he thought he might die after mistakenly believing that Haubert had accused him of having a gun, when Haubert in fact said he had one pointed at the back of the man’s head. Vinson looked down as body camera video of the arrest was played while he was on the witness stand, sitting just a few feet from Haubert.
Vinson, who is now serving a prison sentence in another case, said he had initially refused to come to court to testify against Haubert.
“I don’t like reliving it a lot. Usually I feel like people who are in this situation, with police brutality, are dead,” Vinson said. The judge did not allow him to continue along those lines after the defense objected.
The defense argued that Haubert had the right to use his gun like he would use a baton because Vinson tried to grab Haubert’s firearm — something that prosecutors denied he did.
Hoisington said Vinson, who had a warrant for his arrest in a domestic violence case at the time of his arrest, remained in a defensive stance during the encounter and put his hands up to try to protect himself.
Defense lawyer Kristen Frost presented a still photo made from video that Vinson acknowledged showed three of his fingers on Haubert’s gun. But Vinson said he was not trying to grab it.
In questioning Vinson, Frost pointed out that he did not initially cooperate by getting on his stomach when Haubert ordered him to do so.
Frost also argued that Haubert did not strangle Vinson, putting his hand on Vinson’s neck to hold him down but not wrapping his fingers around it.
Haubert’s trial follows the convictions last year of an Aurora police officer and two paramedics from the city’s fire department in the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, who was put in a neck hold by police before being injected with the sedative ketamine by paramedics.
Vinson’s violent arrest renewed anger about misconduct by the city’s police department. The department’s then-chief, Vanessa Wilson, who had vowed to try to restore trust, announced Haubert’s arrest four days later, calling the handling of Vinson’s arrest a “very despicable act.”
Vinson was taken to a hospital for the welts as well as a cut on his head that required six stitches, police said.
Haubert and another officer stopped Vinson and two other men after responding to a trespassing complaint at the parking lot of a shopping center. Initially things were relatively calm, with Haubert telling the men to take a seat on a curb in the shade and letting Vinson finishing smoking his cigarette, according to body camera video.
But the defense said the situation escalated after the other officer, Francine Martinez, surprised Haubert by trying to arrest one of the other men rather than waiting for backup. That man and another next to him ran, but Vinson stayed.
Frost told jurors in opening statements that Haubert, not knowing where the other men were or if they were armed, had to act quickly to make sure Vinson did not get away, and arrest him.
Martinez was found guilty of failing to intervene to stop Haubert, a misdemeanor crime created by state lawmakers as part of a police reform law passed shortly after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. She was sentenced to six months of house arrest.
He did not try to comply. If you watch the body cam, you will see that he started stalling and that the officer only pointed his gun at him after he did not obey commands. The officers both took him by the arm and rolled him over. He did not put his hands out in front until after his body stated to come up off the ground and the officer put his gun to his head in response. Vinson actively started to resist after being told that he had a warrant (felony). At that time he kept saying that he did not have a warrant. So, he knew that he had a warrant and chose to actively resist arrest. During the long struggle, he said that he could not go to jail. He reached for and touched the officer’s gun with both hands several times before he was hit. Then, during the following struggle, while crying, he grabbed the officer’s gun a number of times causing the officer to have to rip his gun out of Vinson’s hand. An officer fighting with a felony suspect with his gun in his hand has few good options. In the past, many officers have had to hit the suspect with their gun. Many suspects have been convicted of trying to disarm an officer with less evidence. Vinson’s hand can clearly be seen on the officer’s gun before he was hit. He kicked at the officer several times and continued to resist even after other officers arrived. He was never afraid of being shot. He had numerous chances to quit resisting, including the 39 seconds where there was a pause in the struggle while Officer Haubert held him at arms length by the throat to keep him from grabbing his gun again. The witnesses said that the officer gave many commands that were disregarded. One witness said that the officer gave too many commands and too many chances for Vinson to comply. State law is clear that in a case where the officer has a serious threat to himself or another, he may use deadly force. Deadly force means that the person dies. The officer used less than deadly force. The doctor did not deem that Vinson had suffered serious bodily injury. Sure, it looks dramatic. There is much more.
However, the worst part of this is the rush to judgment by the DA and the police department. The officers were charged before any interview and before any real interview with Vinson. In an interview with Vinson before he asked for a lawyer, he lied to detectives. The officers were charged before the detective even picked up videos from two businesses that show the extent of Vinson’s resistance. Those videos have not been shown to anyone. They were not even shown in the trial of the female officer. Her attorney thought that they did not show anything. The detective stated that one of them did not. The detective characterized Vinson as not being a threat and being compliant. The videos show clearly that that was not true. It was a political triumph for Chief Wilson to throw her officer’s lives and careers away so she could look like the great reformer. I don’t know how anyone connected with this investigation can sleep. It was shoddy, rushed, and completely distorted. As a former detective supervisor, I don’t know how anyone could have reviewed that investigation and not objected. Sad commentary on where we are.
Not flowing instruction is not permission to be shot and possibly killed. Only a psychopathic narcissist would think not obeying your command is a good enough reason to threaten somebody’s life.
So, your apologetics fails from square one.
The Kyle Vinson isn’t innocent, but that doesn’t automatically make officer Haubert innocent either.
Trying to take your gun is a little more than not obeying orders. His attempts to take the officer’s gun are apparent on the videos. Interestingly, the most important video was not used in Officer Martinez’s trial. In the present trial, they have not blown up and slowed down the video. What are they afraid of? the detective said that he charged the officers before interviewing them because he felt he had enough. That is a statement a rookie officer would make. An investigation is a search for the truth and it means that you look at all of the evidence. In the law, there is a thing called exculpatory evidence. That means that as an officer or an official of the court, you have the responsibility to expose not just evidence of guilt but also any evidence that tends to show the person’s innocence. It doesn’t matter if you like the person or not. Justice demands that everyone is treated with fairness and all of the facts are exposed. That was not done here. We are still struggling to get videos shown. How could that be a question if we are interested in the truth and justice? What about all this talk of transparency?
DON BLACK HAS TOOOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS!!!!!!!
I see your point. However, I believe that Don just can’t get with the reality that, in general, the taxpayers simply despise him and his fellow officers. They have gotten the idea that the police are freeloaders and thugs. It is highly likely that they are incorrect, but that won’t change the reality of the situation. His traditional enemies are still there, but are now shoulder to shoulder with suburban moms, dads, kids, grandmas and grandpas. A dangerous situation for the police and the people that they once served. As they say, guns don’t shoot people, people do and that includes a large percentage of the nuts that the police come in contact with every day. In other words, everybody.
This trial was set to be in the Arapahoe county justice center this week. Most all court hearings in the state are easily viewable through the states Webex viewer. The trial docket is set in Division 408, for a week straight. For some odd reason this trial is being made unavailable and blocked from public viewing. This seems unusual, as other trials in different divisions are clearly wide open for viewing.
I am shocked, shocked I say, that the criminal who struggled to avoid arrest now testifies he was scared for his life, self serving testimony especially in light of his civil suit against the City. I am sure his attorney, Mr. Mohamedbhai, who makes his living suing the City did not go over his testimony several times before he testi-lied.
The guy fought with the cops. he sustained some injuries, the kind many of us have sustained in pick up ball games on the weekends. I am not going to be horrified for the guy. Sorry, I’m just not.