Colorado cop sued for using Taser on unarmed father during son's traffic stop

A Colorado man is suing cops he says Tasered him in the face as he tried to watch a traffic stop involving his son.

Kenneth Espinoza filed the lawsuit Tuesday against Lt. Henry Trujillo and other members of the Las Animas County Sheriff’s Office, the Denver Post reported. The lawsuit has also drawn news coverage of the criminal history of Trujillo, who is third in command of the office.

A deputy had pulled over Espinosa’s son Nathaniel for allegedly following his patrol car too closely in icy conditions. The Espinosas had been following one another to the same destination in separate vehicles. When the Kenneth Espinosa saw his son get pulled over, he stopped to observe – and was confronted by Trujillo.

The November 29 incident was captured on in video footage from Trujillo’s body cam. In it, Trujillo and another sheriff’s deputy can be seen violently pulling Espinoza from his pickup truck by his arm, Tasing him and throwing him onto the snowy ground.

The incident began with the officer knocking on Espinoza’s window.

“Do you need to be behind this traffic stop?” Trujillo asks Espinoza, who replied he needed to be there because his son was involved. Trujillo responds, “he’s under traffic stop. You don’t need to be behind it. We just don’t like when people pull in behind us. You need to leave right now or you’re going to be charged too. It’s as simple as that.”

Espinoza responds, “I don’t need to do anything. I’m on a public street. I pay taxes.” After the two traded obscenities, Trujillo returned to his squad car. Then Deputy Mikhail Noel, who had stopped his son, can be seen pointing a Taser at Espinoza and a violent confrontation ensued.

Espinosa’s lawsuit states, “There was no real or apparent threat to the officers. Both defendants escalated and caused this situation, acted violently and unlawfully, and then wrote minimized and falsified statements as to what occurred during the encounter with Mr. Espinoza,” according to the Post.

“The Nov. 29 incident brought to light Trujillo’s criminal history and five civil protection orders requested against him. Trujillo has worked at the southern Colorado sheriff’s office intermittently since 2001 and is the third in command at the agency.

“Trujillo has been convicted of several criminal charges between 1997 and 2009 in Las Animas County, including displaying a weapon, harassment and fighting in public. He was also the subject of several restraining orders. One of the applications for a civil protection order alleged Trujillo threatened to shoot a man he was arresting. Another from a former romantic partner alleged he refused to let her leave the house or use the phone after she tried to break up with him.”

The report added: “Twelve days before arresting Espinoza, the county settled a different federal lawsuit alleging Trujillo and Noel used excessive force when they forcibly arrested a deaf woman in a hospital, where she was recovering from a suicide attempt. The deputies had been called to the hospital not for an alleged crime but to transport her to treatment.”

Las Animas County Sheriff Derek Navarette on Tuesday declined to comment on the lawsuit except to say that the two deputies involved had been placed on administrative leave. An outside agency is investigating the incident, he said, but Navarette would not say which agency.