DENVER (AP) - An Aurora police officer was fired in February for allowing a woman under restraint in his vehicle to fall to the floor and for ignoring her complaints that her neck was going to break and that she couldn’t breathe, The Denver Post reported Friday.
The woman was in an inverted position on the floor inside Officer Levi Huffine’s vehicle for 21 minutes during the Aug. 27 incident, according to internal affairs records obtained by the Post after a public records request.
The incident occurred while Huffine was taking the woman to jail on suspicion of municipal violations related to a fight, the records show.
The woman’s name was redacted from the documents. She “repeatedly asked for help, said that her neck was going to break, said that she could not breathe and that she did not want to die like that,” the records state.
“You failed to ensure the safety and security of your detainee,” interim Chief Vanessa Wilson wrote in a Feb. 6 termination letter.
An appeals process over Huffine’s firing continues, the Post said.
The Aurora department has come under fire over the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died last year after police stopped him on a street in a Denver suburb and used a chokehold on him.
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