A man who used a theatrical projector to bathe a public building with protest messages is suing a number of state and Denver law enforcement officers for taking his projector and not giving it back.
Trevor Ycas projected three political slogans onto the Ralph L. Carr Judicial Center during an evening protest in January 2026 against Immigration and Customs Enforcement. One of the messages read “ABOLISH I.C.E”, another “STOP I.C.E. MURDERS” and the third “De-I.C.E. Colorado,” according to a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court late Monday.
The messages were beamed from the public park next to the building as demonstrators gathered.
Ycas’s lawyer, Andy McNulty, insisted that the messages were angled upward above traffic and pointed to a building that was shuttered for the night, so there were no occupants “to be annoyed or otherwise affected,” according to the complaint.
Colorado State Patrol cruisers drove up on the lawn near where Ycas was projecting messages and parked with their headlights illuminating his projection equipment. The two troopers ordered him to stop. Ycas shut down his projector and gave his driver’s license to the two officers, when they asked for it, according to the complaint.
When four DPD officers arrived, they cited Ycas with a municipal code violation that bans people from using “search lights, spotlights or klieg lights for advertising or display purposes for purposes of attracting attention to a particular premises or a particular business.”
The officers also took the projector without a warrant or without probable cause that a crime had been committed, the complaint said.
The municipal code violation charges were dismissed at the end of March.
Since then, Ycas has been trying to get his projector back, which he says is worth about $2,000. He repeatedly called the DPD Property Bureau to no avail, apparently a voicemail box wasn’t set up. A sergeant eventually confirmed that the projector was in DPD’s possession and couldn’t be released, even though the code violation allegations were dropped.
His lawyers call the seizure illegal and say it has violated Ycas’s protected expression.
“Mr. Ycas has been muzzled by Defendants from condemning it,” McNulty said in the complaint. “The continued retention of Mr. Ycas’s projector after the dismissal of the underlying charge is an ongoing prior restraint on his speech.”
Ycas is asking for a jury trial and is suing the State Patrol and Denver Police Department officers for violating his freedom of speech, violating his right to petition, retaliating simply because he exercised his freedom of speech, unreasonable search and seizure and malicious prosecution.
The Colorado State Patrol referred questions about the troopers who were sued to Denver. The city attorney’s office declined to comment on pending litigation.
