Four people who were struck by bullets when Denver police officers opened fire into a large crowd have filed a lawsuit against the officer who shot them.
Bailey Alexander, Yekalo Weldehiwet, Willis Small IV and Mark Bess were all severely injured by Officer Brandon Ramos' gunfire.
The lawsuit states that Alexander was shot in her right shoulder and upper arm. That bullet traveled through her and hit Weldehiwet, shattering the humerus in his right arm. Small was hit on the outside of his left foot. The force of the shot to Bess's upper right chest knocked him to the ground, and the bullet caused second-degree burns.
Ramos is the only officer facing criminal charges in the shooting. A grand jury indicted him in January on at least a dozen counts including second-degree assault and reckless endangerment.
The lawsuit filed this week is the second suit Ramos faces from people in the crowd who were injured.
The shooting occurred as people filled the streets post-bar close around 1:30 a.m. on July 17, 2022, near the 2000 block of Larimer Street. Denver police officers, including Ramos, looked for Jordan Waddy who had been involved in a fight before the shooting.
Police said they gave verbal commands for Waddy to stop. When police confronted him, Waddy backed up onto a sidewalk between a vehicle and a food truck, and disregarded the command, police said. Waddy struggled and eventually removed a black semiautomatic handgun from his jacket pocket. That's when police fired at least seven rounds toward him and into the crowd.
Three officers, including Ramos, fired their guns that night, but Denver District Attorney Beth McCann said in January that the other two officers who fired their guns will not face criminal charges because both the DA and grand jury found that their actions were legally justified. The indictment said the other two officers reasonably believed they were in physical danger by Waddy after they saw him pull a gun from his jacket.
Ramos was not in immediate danger when he fired his gun, according to the indictment. Ramos fired his gun twice and hit six innocent bystanders, police said. Waddy was also shot, and all survived.
"Officer Ramos' decision to shoot was not legally justified because it was reckless, unreasonable and unnecessary for the purpose of protecting himself or other officers, and he consciously disregarded an unjustifiable risk of injury to the crowd behind Mr. Waddy," the January indictment reads.
The lawsuit takes the indictment a step further.
"Officer Ramos' heedless actions resulted in devastating and life-altering injuries to his victims, the Plaintiffs in this action. Bailey Alexander, Yekalo Weldehiwet, Willis Small IV, and Mark Bess will each bear the resulting scars for the remainder of their lives," the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit says that Alexander, Weldehiwet, Small and Bess have incurred economic damages related to medical care and lost wages, as well as pain, suffering, emotional distress, and loss in quality of life.
"Perhaps worse, [they] now live in a state of anxiety and fear in public settings, and particularly in crowds," the suit states. It says the four plaintiffs' emotional injuries and loss of quality of life are substantial.
CPR reporter Lacretia Wimbley contributed to this report.
