>>Loveland police release body camera footage, name of officer in use of force case

Loveland Police Department has released body camera footage and named the officer fired for inappropriately using force and injuring a woman officers had taken to the hospital for help last month.

The terminated officer has been identified by the department as 28-year-old Russell Maranto. Maranto had worked at Loveland Police Department since June 2022 and was nearing the end of the department’s standard one-year probationary period all officers must complete before becoming a full-fledged police officer when he was fired May 23. Before working at Loveland Police Department, Maranto worked at the Montrose Police Department and the Wyoming Department of Corrections, the department said in a statement.

Body camera footage from the first officer who responded, Nick Hobbs, released by Loveland police Friday shows Maranto striking the woman in the face after she continues to spit, yell and be generally uncooperative with officers and hospital staff after officers brought her in for help the evening of May 20.

Here’s what we learned from that footage.

Footage captured initial response, altercation at hospital and post-incident interview

Maranto and Hobbs were responding to multiple reports of “a woman wandering in and out of traffic and speaking incoherently” in the area of North Garfield Avenue and East 29th Street in Loveland about 8:30 p.m. that night, police Chief Tim Doran said in a prior video statement.

Body camera footage shows Hobbs — who arrived on scene several minutes before Maranto — attempting to get the woman’s name and where she’s going and offering help to the woman, but she does not respond to his questions, instead speaking incoherently and repeating that she is “walking and singing a song.”

The woman continues to walk away from Hobbs through a shopping center parking lot, while Hobbs tells her that multiple people called in about her standing in the middle of U.S. Highway 287. Later in the video, Hobbs is approached in the parking lot by two witnesses who said they feared she was going to get hit by a car and had video of her walking in the middle of the road.

“You’re walking in front of cars and I don’t want that to happen,” Hobbs tells the woman in the video.

When Maranto arrives, he immediately approaches and grabs the woman to prevent her from continuing to walk away, and she yells for him to not touch her. When she doesn’t respond to him asking if she will cooperate — instead yelling, cursing and telling him not to touch her — he tells her, “Don’t fight me, you’re being detained,” according to the video. Once in handcuffs and placed in protective custody, the officers transport the woman to the Medical Center of the Rockies.

The woman continues to be uncooperative at the hospital, yelling and cursing at the officers and hospital staff, spitting and continuing to get up out of her chair despite officers telling her to stay seated and calm down. The video shows Maranto taking a piece of paper out of her hands — which are handcuffed behind her back — and she becomes more upset, screaming and demanding her paper back, pushing her knee against Maranto.

“If you kick me, I’m going to fight back,” Maranto said in the video.

The video shows the woman spitting again, and Maranto hitting her across the face.

Hobbs immediately separates them and says, “Maranto, chill. Back off, I can do it,” and he takes over holding the woman so Maranto can leave the room. The woman continues screaming, demanding she be able to file a report and get video footage.

Hobbs then calls for another officer and a sergeant to respond. In an interview with the sergeant — Sgt. James King — captured on Hobbs’ body camera, Hobbs says he stepped in because he felt Maranto’s reaction to the woman spitting was “a little too excessive.”

Hobbs told King that Maranto had told him “ultimately he was just trying to get her face away” so she wouldn’t spit on him, but ended up hitting her “a little hard.”

“You did good, busting up and intervening, you did good,” King tells Hobbs in the video.

The entire hour-and-a-half-long body camera footage, as well as a video statement from Doran that includes a clip from the body camera footage, can be viewed on the city of Loveland’s YouTube page: youtube.com/@CityofLoveland.

What Doran told the community Friday

In his video statement, Doran apologized for Maranto “not upholding the standard of our policing profession,” and applauded Hobbs’ immediate intervention.

“The fact the backup officer intervened immediately and separated the offending officer from the female and called for a supervisor speaks to his integrity and training,” Doran said, also applauding “the kindness displayed in the first minutes of the encounter when the officer simply offered a courtesy ride home to a woman who could not even recall where she lived.”

Understanding why officers took the woman to the ER

Officers placed the woman in protective custody that night because she was walking in traffic and could have been hit by a car or caused vehicles to swerve. They believed she was a danger to herself or others, department spokesperson Bob Coleman told the Coloradoan. Hobbs offered the woman a ride several times, but the woman never told him where she was going, body camera footage showed.

Colorado law allows police officers to place people in protective custody when an officer has probable cause to believe that a person is an imminent danger to themselves or others.

Officers initially thought she might need some type of medical attention and took her to the hospital, which is in accordance with department policy and procedure, Coleman said.

But in body camera footage it appeared no one knew what to do with the woman once at the hospital.

In the video, medical staff attempts to ask the woman what’s going on, but she continues to yell and be uncooperative, so medical staff leaves the room. Officers attempt to calm her down so she can receive medical care, but instead the situation escalates when Maranto becomes “heated and overwhelmed,” Hobbs later told King, and strikes the woman in the face.

After that, a doctor walks in and Hobbs explains to her why they brought the woman to the emergency room while the woman continues yelling and demanding to file a report against Maranto, according to the video.

“I don’t think she needs to be in the ER,” the doctor tells Hobbs.

“OK, is there somewhere else we can take her?” Hobbs asks.

“To jail,” the doctor says. “She doesn’t need to be here.”

“We just don’t have any charges for her to take (her) to jail,” Hobbs said.

Later, in Hobbs’ interview with King, King asks Hobbs what charges they have for her, and Hobbs replies, “I have no idea.”

The jail will not hold anyone unless they are being charged with a crime, Coleman said, and Larimer County doesn’t have a detox facility. At the time officers contacted and detained the woman, she was not being charged with a crime.

Larimer County’s Longview Behavioral Health Center is set to be completed this year and will have a behavioral health urgent care, in addition to other mental health and substance abuse services, but because the facility is not open yet, Coleman said he does not know what the facility’s criteria will be.

The facility was designed with law enforcement in mind and as a place for officers to take individuals in crisis other than the jail and the hospital, Executive Director of Larimer County Behavioral Health Services Laurie Stolen previously told the Coloradoan.

What’s next for the woman, officer

The woman involved has been charged with third-degree assault, a Class 1 misdemeanor, for allegedly spitting on the officer, Doran said. While Doran said the criminal investigation into Maranto’s actions — led by the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office — is “coming to a close,” the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office has not yet made a decision about what, if any, criminal charges will be filed against him.

All suspects are innocent until proven guilty in court. Arrests and charges are merely accusations by law enforcement until, and unless, a suspect is convicted of a crime.

See videos here:

Loveland police identify officer fired for hitting woman in May (coloradoan.com)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-shows-fired-colorado-officer-233046447.html