When Amy Shroff’s ex-boyfriend violated a restraining order by blocking her exit from a police station parking lot with his pickup, the Denver woman thought officers would come to her defense.
Instead, Officer Frank Spellman mistakenly arrested Shroff for violating the restraining order. She ended up spending a night in jail despite pleas that her 4-month-old needed breast milk due to a medical condition that prevented the baby from drinking formula.
Now Denver police are offering up a mea culpa, admitting the officer had no cause to arrest Shroff. And the city of Denver is poised to pay $175,000 to settle a federal wrongful arrest lawsuit.
“This is a reasonable settlement under the circumstances,” said City Attorney David Fine in a prepared statement.
The Police Department says the restraining order was not reciprocal and did not prevent Shroff from having any contact with her ex-boyfriend, as the police officer interpreted.
Instead, the restraining order strictly prohibited the former boyfriend from having contact with her, and Shroff should have been considered the protected one, a representative of the Police Department later said in sworn testimony.
“This case is an absolute outrage, and the citizens of Denver should storm City Hall in a torch-light parade demanding accountability,” said Shroff’s lawyer, David Lane.
Spellman could not be reached for comment. In sworn testimony, he said the former boyfriend had contended that Shroff was stalking him, an accusation she adamantly denied.
Prosecutors dismissed the criminal charge of violating a restraining order within three days of Shroff’s arrest. But the dismissal did not occur until after Shroff, a management consultant, spent a night in jail and her baby became ill from drinking formula, her lawsuit states.
Shroff declined to comment for this story, but her lawsuit gave the following account:
On Feb. 23, 2006, she was going to drop off her daughter with the child’s paternal grandparents so she could spend time with her father.
On the way to the police station exchange point, Shroff spotted the truck of the father, Greg Kruse, parked outside the Campus Lounge at 10:55 a.m. She knew he had a drinking problem and took a photograph to show the court as proof.
Shroff proceeded to the District 3 police station and was confronted by Kruse there. She contends that under the restraining order, only Kruse’s parents were allowed to show up there. As she was trying to leave the police station parking lot, the former boyfriend used his truck to block her exit.
Shroff went back inside to show police the restraining order that a judge had issued ordering Kruse to stay away from her.
Instead of finding sympathy, Shroff was arrested. Spellman told her that the restraining order required her to stay away from Kruse, and that he was tired of her making so many appearances at the police station. Instead of allowing her to go on to church as she had planned, the officer detained her in a holding cell.
She and her stepfather, Bill McAdam, repeatedly tried to point out that the restraining order was not reciprocal and was targeted at preventing Kruse from coming near her. She claimed that in the past Kruse had choked her and thrown her against a wall.
“Despite having the order in his hands, despite Shroff’s and McAdam’s entreaties to Spellman, he arrested Shroff and charged her with violating the restraining order and threatened to arrest McAdam if he did not ‘shut up,’ ” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit adds that Shroff told Spellman that she was nursing the newborn and that the baby had a condition that prevented it from digesting formula.
Spellman was not sympathetic, the lawsuit claims. “She better start liking formula real quick,” Shroff recalled Spellman telling her.
After much pleading, Shroff was allowed to use a breast pump in the holding cell. The fact she had to disrobe to do so in front of a female cadet was so embarrassing that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals later equated it to a strip search.
The lawsuit said that after Shroff was taken to the Denver City Jail, deputies there ridiculed her when she begged to be allowed to pump more breast milk so her stepfather could feed the baby. It contended that one of the deputies referred to her as a “rich bitch” who believed she deserved “special treatment.”
By the time Shroff was allowed to pump again, 24 hours later, the infant had become ill from drinking formula that she was unable to digest, according to the lawsuit.
The settlement proposal that the Denver City Council will consider approving Monday would pay Shroff $94,238. The law firm that represented her, Killmer, Lane & Newman LLP, would receive $80,761.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
