Former Colorado Officer That Assaulted Elderly Woman With Dementia Receives Five-Year Prison Sentence

The former Colorado police officer who injured an elderly woman with dementia while arresting her has been sentenced to five years in prison.

On Thursday, former Loveland, Colorado police officer Austin Hopp was sentenced to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a then 73-year-old woman named Karen Garner, who has dementia, back in March.

On June 26, 2020, Garner left a store in Loveland, Colorado, without paying for $14 worth of items. Garner was walking through a field, picking wildflowers at the time of her arrest. Garner can be seen turning away from him and Hopp grabbing her arm and pushing her to the ground in the bodycam footage. Garner was still holding on to the wildflowers, NBC News reports.

While pushing her against his car, she turned around and explained that she was trying to go home. He then pushed her back against the car and bent her arm toward her head. “Are you finished? Are you finished? We don’t play this game,” he can be heard saying.

The entire ordeal ended with Hopp getting sued for allegedly dislocating Garner’s shoulder. The city settled the federal lawsuit for $3 million.

NBC News reports State District Judge Michelle Brinegar said Hopp used his “position of power and authority to show off his toughness, disregard any sense of humanity, displayed an alarming degree of criminal thinking and caused a great deal of harm and trauma.” She added that she believes Hopp is sorry but that she doesn’t believe that he gets the severity of the incident.

He also received three years of mandatory parole.