AURORA | An Aurora police officer is under investigation for an August incident in which he suddenly threw a handcuffed man to the ground causing the man to bleed while escorting him out of the Medical Center of Aurora.
The Aurora Police Department released body-worn camera footage of the incident Thursday, saying the footage had already been “released … to the media in accordance with state law” but that they were “releasing the video to the public as part of our continued commitment to community transparency.” The 7-minute long video includes footage from the perspective of the officer who threw the suspect to the ground as well as two other officers who were present.
While a police spokesperson declined to release the name of the officer who used force on the suspect, the name “W. Oxford” was printed on the officer’s name tag, which is visible at multiple points during the video.
A search of the state’s Peace Officer Standards & Training Board certification database shows that William Oxford was the latest Aurora officer to become the subject of a criminal investigation.
At the start of the video, Oxford locks the handcuffs of the man — who was referred to as “Jesus” in the video and who police later identified as Alessandro Torres-Encinas — as Torres-Encinas is seated on a hospital bed. Oxford and other officers then escort Torres-Encinas through a hallway toward the exit of the hospital.
Oxford argues with Torres-Encinas as the two walk through the building, with Oxford holding onto Torres-Encinas’ arm. As they approach the exit door of the hospital, Torres-Encinas turns to face Oxford. Oxford then tells Torres-Encinas to “stop resisting,” places his right hand behind Torres-Encinas’ neck and throws him to the ground, slamming the side of Torres-Encinas’ face into the floor.
As blood drips from his face, Torres-Encinas begins crying and yelling at Oxford. Another of the officers laughs and says “that’s quite enough.” Oxford tells Torres-Encinas that he threw him on the ground because Torres-Encinas had “tensed up” and “started to pull away.”
Police spokesman Joe Moylan later wrote that Torres-Encinas had been charged with felony menacing using a gun, resisting arrest, obstructing a peace officer and false reporting. He also had two warrants out of Arapahoe County for drug offenses.
In the news release, police indicated Oxford was removed from enforcement duties in February and would remain in that position until the conclusion of criminal and internal investigations. Police said that, because of how the incident was originally classified and the caseload of investigators, the incident wasn’t investigated until mid-January.
“The Chief of Police authorized an internal investigation into the incident and requested the Colorado Bureau of Investigation to conduct a separate, external criminal investigation,” police wrote.
“The criminal investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is complete and was forwarded today to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office for consideration of filing formal charges. The internal investigation is ongoing.”
They further said that, moving forward, officer supervisors would immediately investigate all uses of force incidents, followed by an evaluation at the district level. If necessary, investigations will then be forwarded to the Force Investigations Unit for review. Internal investigations and criminal investigations will also take place simultaneously.
“In the past, when an officer was accused of a crime, the practice has been to wait until the criminal investigation was completed and adjudicated before launching an internal investigation. That is not a good practice,” police Chief Art Acevedo said in a statement.
Is there anything left to say about APD?
Yes, Farmer. If you have a crime committed against you, they will do their best to solve that crime even if they know how you despise what they stand for.
Preach to these dumb ass lefties in their safe neighborhoods never experiencing crime but seem to want angels to deal with the most dangerous ppl we have. I want cops that want thrones of drug dealer and molesters skulls. I want cops to put the fear of God into these criminals.
APD is the largest criminal gang in Aurora
Pigs don’t do shit to solve crimes dumbass
That is some straight up funny content there. Oh, crap, you serious. What is wrong with you?
Cowards cheer on tyrants. Plenty of cowards here.
Yea that if u call because someone’s trying to kill u they will show up and save u even tho ur a stranger. And the article is FULL of lies. When’s the last time u put ur self at risk for anyone let alone a stranger. Over a billion police interactions a year and less then 1 percent end this way and even less in shootings. Not just that but more cops r killed then police kill unarmed black ppl. But yet y’all think get rid of em all. Come to Baltimore and see if police r needed.
That’s a lie, police kill more people every year than cops die
Cop is a criminal and needs to be caged. My opinion
Not going to happen with that POS Chief of Police! He’s been a known problem with every city he has been Chief in and always wrapped up in cover ups and scandals and if he is the chief I would bet the D.A. and whoever is in charge of any make believe investigation will find the officer clear of any wrong doing! They are already playing the typical game of stalling for long periods of time blaming caseload lmao! SMH!
Lmao ur full of shit
Because of what u read? Watch the video. The guy is insane and he pulled away from the cop to get free and no cop laughed AT ALL! Filled with lies.
You’re blind, the cop was twisting the guy’s wrist to make him “pull away” so he could use as an excuse to bodyslam him.
Cop should be allowed to be slammed headfirst onto the floor by the guy he did it to
To all APD officers and those thinking of applying to the department: The majority of society supports the police, but all of you who stay, or apply to work at APD, we can no longer feel sorry when any APD cop gets in trouble for doing police work. You all know how terrible APD’s Chief and the City are towards police, but you choose to stay…Zero sympathy for any officer who stays at APD and gets in a jam for just doing his/her job because you know fully what kind of place you are working for.
Not so. This has to be properly checked out just because of all the negativity. I watched this video. I’m with the cop. He was calm and collected. You can see Jesus angry and keeps turning to face the officer. He had already run once. And he was simply put down, not “slammed” to the floor.
I put down babies cats and an other animals and none of them came up with blood or rips on their skin
I have put down babies, cats and other animals on the floor and none of them ever came up with blood or torn skin
You’re blind boomer. That pig clear slammed him face first onto the ground and probably broke his face.
I’m with the cop on this one.
You’re reduced to desk duty at your job, under investigation, and potentially unemployed and under indictment? Well, OK, if that’s your choice, I hope you and he enjoy each other’s company. And I hope he doesn’t decide that YOU’RE tensing up and pulling away.
Bootlicker
Hey Art. Had enough of this Blog yet? It isn’t going to change.
Any of your boys that do anything even close to questionable, right or wrong will be exposed in this Blog. Understand that this Blog stands with the socialists on Council and it will always be their intention to make APD look as bad as possible.
The good news is that Dave Perry and the Sentinel Blog will not be around much longer. The enemy of socialism, capitalism, will be its end.
APD make themselves look bad dumbass
“A police spokesman was not immediately able to say what the suspect had done prior to being placed in handcuffs, though Oxford claims at the start of the video that Jesus had tried to flee from police.”
Comply.
Pig was twisting the guy’s wrist to make him “pull away” so could be used as an excuse to body slam him. Maybe open your eyes dumbass
“Investigate”
Did you already forget about the off-duty APD officer who repeatedly punched the handicapped woman?
Jesus was already there because he needed help. I don’t understand why people immediately dehumanized people who they don’t know. They’re your neighbors and your friends.
We don’t need to defund, we need reform. These officers are not efficient at their jobs.
Did you not watch the video? Regardless of Jesus being an alleged flight risk, the officer appeared calm while Jesus was agitated and repeatedly non-compliant. He fell awkwardly, yes, but I’ll predict the take-down itself was completely within bounds. Jesus’ demeanor on the floor was a glimpse of what they dealt with prior to the released snippet of the video.
He held the man with a pain hold on his elbow. When he threw him to the ground the guy was doing nothing. I would “tense up” if somebody squeezed my elbow like that. The cop is a sadist, plain and simple. Nothing gets a sadistic person off more than appearing calm while inflicting pain. Did you miss all the Hannibal Lector movies?
This is a training issue. Officers are given totally inadequate training. I could spend a great deal of time explaining, but some people would complain that I am on a rant. We don’t care about facts anymore, just emotionalism and what side we are on. I will agree with the position that the Chief is taking on investigations. As a supervisor, I conducted the initial use of force investigation immediately and at the scene many times. However, Chief Wilson changed all of that and made a very cumbersome system that wasn’t even fair to the officers.
I investigated quite a few similar takedowns where the arrestee’s head hit the ground or the drywall. It is a training issue. We teach a way to control an arrestee by keeping their upper body back to avoid what you saw on the video. However, it involved taking the person’s head back by grabbing their chin or head. That means that you have to reach over their shoulder and grab the head, chin or base of the neck. Not long ago, here in Colorado, an officer was fired for immediately, briefly grabbing around the subject’s neck. The ridiculous overreaction to the George Floyd incident has left officers with vague guidelines dictated by an uninformed legislature. I can no longer give recruits any clear guidance on use of force. I cannot recommend a job in law enforcement to anyone when they will be judged by the uninformed media and public.
Try to understand that a handcuffed prisoner, especially one who as run in the past, has to be controlled all of the time. Simply walking beside them or holding their arm with one hand has resulted in numerous officers being head butted. The other part is that the officer is responsible if the suspect runs away and injures himself or someone else. You laugh, but you do not have the experience that police officers have. For instance, here in Aurora, a handcuffed suspect seated on a couch, suddenly jumped up and dove out a third story window. He died as a result. So, the things that you say no one would do are common experiences for police officers.
Leadership is far more than chatting sensitively with activist groups and writing policies. Leadership involves hard work. That means that every day you are checking to make sure that the supervisors are giving their officers constant training and updates on legal issues and how to handle situations. Part of that is demonstrating daily the right ethical attitudes to your officers and making sure those attitudes become part of the culture. Culture trumps policy every time. It takes time to establish a good culture. The average chief will be around five years. They are not looking long term on establishing a good culture with good training and leadership. Leadership is not keeping your mouth shut when the legislature passes a police reform bill that is counter to good law enforcement and the public safety.
Now, let us look at a practical question that is a problem with the interpretation of the police reform bill. So, let us say that an uninformed chief or prosecutor decides that the officer’s use of force was excessive. Do we now prosecute the other officers who did not stop the officer when he took the suspect to the ground? was there time for them to intervene? Did they feel the officer’s use of force was excessive? In today’s world, the officers must report every use of force as excessive to cover themselves. We have lost sight of the fact that the Supreme Court said that use of force had to be judged from the viewpoint of a reasonable officer at the scene and not from 20/20 hindsight.
I fear that we will have to get rid of all the officers and have the streets become a complete zoo before someone will stand up to question the ridiculous ideas of the “progressives. Their movement hasn’t improved things a bit. We lost thousands of good officers who cared about the job and the public. Now, we must scramble to quickly train anyone who will apply. Big improvement, huh?
I have never received a straight and helpful answer on what the duty to intervene means at the tactical, operational level when an officer loses control in the presence of other officers. The Haubert pistol whipping incident in Parker occurred during my time on the CSC. His fellow police officer was removed from the APD for failure to intervene. She was half the size of Haubert and to the best of my knowledge had only received theoretical training on the duty to intervene. What was she supposed to do when the situation with her fellow officer unraveled so quickly and must have shocked her….yell at him, jump on top of him, tase him, pepper spray him, baton him, shoot him? Using the reasonable person standard what would have been an appropriate response? If you or anybody else reading this can provide me with an answer that it is logical and sensible I am open to being educated.
Nah this is a sociopath issue. Notice the pig was twisting the guy’s arm to make him “pull away” then use it as an excuse to slam him face first on the ground. That could have paralyzed or even killed him. If you need “training” to learn not to give a handcuffed person brain damage then you have no business being on the job. Send that pig straight to jail and fire his ass!
Just another example of our sociopathic, sadistic APD officers. Also the one that puts extreme pressure on his leg when he is down from Sadist # 1. No problem, APD will cover it up, a little paid time off (vacation), maybe talk to a shrink. 3 cops, the guy is handcuffed, should never have happened. Wonder how much this will cost APD if the guy sues?
So an article full of unsubstantiated inuendo leads to responses full of supposition and the agenda of the paper is advanced and that agenda is not reporting, but advocating.
The video speaks for itself. That pig should be tarred, feathered and dragged through the street and pelted with rocks. ACAB
In the lead picture above, note the pain compliance hold the police officer is applying on the subject’s right wrist. Why, after slamming him down, seeing him in a pool of blood, was this additional bit of torture necessary?
90% chance he beats his wife and children too
Just this week I attended a ward 5 town meeting and asked specifically whether there was any de-escalation training going on and then I read this article. Apparently, some still aren’t getting the message. I don’t think an unarmed and handcuffed person needs to be body slammed to the point of the injuries he sustained. I eagerly await resolution of this investigation.
Are we allowed to speculate on what may have happened had Jesus pulled away from the Officer and started running/flreeing through the hospital past the injured and the ill? Might he have run into a post surgery patient taking their first post surgery walk and knocked them over? Might he have knocked over a cart of medications, run in to and injured a nurse? Might he have delayed a doctor responding to a patient in cardiac arrest, delaying treatment? Are people suggesting that rather than taking him down the officers should have deployed mace in a hospital setting where there may be respiratory patients? Perhaps they should have used their tazers or firearms hoping they did not hit an oxygen tank.
How about not twist the guy’s wrist so as to make him “pull away” and then use it as an excuse to almost paralyze/kill the guy, jackass?
In the future, people will likely be pissing on that pig’s grave! ACAB
How much more time needs to pass before we get an update?
Its been two years since this happened, are they doing cancer research?