Citizen Report No. 1632865579 - 984670393

Officer Robert Comstock (fired pepper balls at Salmons), Officer Christopher Laabs (pushed Salmons to the ground), Detective Andrew Rutter (struck Salmons’ leg), Officer Robert Thymian and Sgt. Keith Wrede.

Multiple officers hit Justin Salmons while restraining him.

In response to a public records request from ProPublica, the department released more than 120 pages of officer narrative surrounding Salmons’ arrest. According to the narratives, civilian Justin Salmons cussed at officers, refused to leave an intersection and “made rude gestures towards officers involving his crotch and hands,” and did not comply with an order to get on the ground before the arrest caught on video. The officer who struck Salmons’ leg said he “aimed at his common peroneal nerve to gain compliance.” After the incident, Salmons “exhibited a contusion to his forehead and a laceration to his left forearm.” Salmons told ProPublica he had gone to check on someone whom police had been chasing when officers began shooting pepper balls at him. That made him “supremely angry,” Salmons said. “Police are supposed to protect you.” The Colorado Springs Police Department did not receive any formal citizen complaints about the incident, but because of the “substantial amount of interest” from the public, the department conducted an internal affairs investigation, which concluded in September 2020. The officers were all exonerated for use of force during the arrest, but Thymian and Wrede were both given “verbal counseling” as they did not activate their body cameras. The investigation found Thymian did not knowingly leave his off, whereas Wrede told investigators he “did not have time” to activate it. When asked for comment about the incident in July 2020, the officers deferred to the department’s public information officer. One month after the incident in the video, Sgt. Keith Wrede, one of the officers involved, posted “KILL THEM ALL” on a Facebook livestream of a separate local protest. The post was made under a pseudonym. Following an investigation into the post, Wrede received a 40-hour suspension equating to $2,044 in lost wages. Per the case summary, Wrede "expressed a high level of regret for ever making comments of that nature,” and in an interview he told investigators that he had been listening to Metallica’s “Kill ‘Em All” on his ride home from work.