Three Denver Police officers who beat a man during a traffic stop in 2009, will not be charged with any civil rights violations.
Alexander Landau, now 23, told The Denver Post that representatives from the FBI called him on Friday night to inform him that they didn't believe they had enough evidence to charged the officers with a federal crime.
Landau's case brought about one of the largest police brutality settlements in Denver history, totaling $795,000 in 2011. It also brought about community outrage, when photos of Landau's bloody face surfaced after the incident.
Landau had been beaten during an illegal left turn after he questioned the police officers' authority to search the trunk of his car, asking for a warrant. He'd had weed in the car. According to the civil rights complaint filed afterward, Landau said Denver Police Officers Randy Murr and Tiffany Middleton grabbed Landau by his arms while another officer, Ricky Nixon -- who would later be involved in yet another incident of police brutality -- punched him in the face. Landau says the officers yelled that he was going for their gun, he responded that he wasn't, but he ended up on the ground anyway and the officers continued beating him with their flashlights, radio and fists.
He blacked out and said he that when he came to, he remembered one of the officers saying, "Where's that warrant now, you f***ing n***er?"
In 2011, Landau sued the city, alleging that officers tried to cover up the beating.
After the Justice Department's conclusion however, Denver Police Protective Association President Nick Rogers told The Denver Post that the decision not to press federal charges had been appropriate.
"It's pretty simple: The officers did nothing wrong," Rogers said.
In 2011, Denver's police force settlements spilled over $1 million in payouts from the city.
Officers Middleton and Nixon remain on the job, although Nixon had to be reinstated after he was fired for lying in a police report about a separate violent incident caught on camera outside a Denver diner. Officer Murr was fired for another incident in 2009 that was caught on video and showed officers beating up Michael DeHerrera.
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