Excessive Force Cases in Colorado: What Victims of Police Violence Need to Know

When a police officer crosses the line from lawful force into violence, the law provides a path to accountability. But that path is narrow, technical, and unforgiving of mistakes. Colorado victims of excessive force have stronger legal tools than residents of almost any other state — and almost no margin for error in using them.

This article explains how excessive force cases work in Colorado: the federal and state claims available, how courts decide whether force was "excessive," the defenses officers and cities will raise, and the deadlines that can extinguish a valid case before it begins.

What Counts as Excessive Force?

There is no statute that lists which police actions are excessive. Instead, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution prohibits "unreasonable" seizures, and the U.S. Supreme Court held in Graham v. Connor (1989) that all claims of excessive force during an arrest, stop, or other seizure are judged under an "objective reasonableness" standard.

Under Graham, courts weigh three core factors:

1. The severity of the crime at issue. Force that might be justified against an armed robbery suspect is not justified against someone stopped for a broken taillight.
2. Whether the suspect posed an immediate threat to officers or others. This is usually the most important factor. The question is not whether the officer claims to have feared for his safety, but whether a reasonable officer on the scene would have perceived an immediate threat.
3. Whether the suspect was actively resisting arrest or attempting to flee. Passive non-compliance — going limp, asking questions, moving slowly — is not active resistance, and the Tenth Circuit (the federal appeals court covering Colorado) has repeatedly said so.

Critically, reasonableness is judged from the perspective of a reasonable officer at the moment force was used — not with 20/20 hindsight, but also not through the self-serving lens of the officer's after-the-fact report. This is why evidence matters so much in these cases. Body-worn camera footage, which Colorado law now requires officers to activate during most interactions, has transformed excessive force litigation. The video frequently tells a very different story than the police report.

Common fact patterns we see in Colorado excessive force cases include:

• Shootings of people who were unarmed, fleeing, or experiencing a mental health crisis
• TASER deployments against people who were not actively resisting
• Takedowns and strikes against handcuffed or restrained individuals
• Carotid holds and prone restraint leading to asphyxia
• K-9 deployments that continue after a suspect has surrendered
• Force used against bystanders, protesters, and people filming police

The Federal Claim: 42 U.S.C. § 1983

Section 1983 is the federal civil rights statute that allows individuals to sue state and local officials — including police officers — who violate their constitutional rights while acting "under color of law." It has been the workhorse of police misconduct litigation for decades.

A § 1983 excessive force case is typically filed in federal district court (in Colorado, the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado) and can seek compensatory damages for physical injuries, medical expenses, lost income, pain and suffering, and emotional distress. In cases involving malicious or recklessly indifferent conduct, punitive damages are available against individual officers. A prevailing plaintiff can also recover attorney's fees under 42 U.S.C. § 1988 — which is what makes it economically possible for civil rights firms to take these cases on contingency.

But § 1983 comes with a significant obstacle: qualified immunity.

Qualified Immunity

Qualified immunity is a judge-made doctrine that shields officers from federal liability unless the plaintiff can show both (1) that the officer violated a constitutional right, and (2) that the right was "clearly established" at the time — meaning prior case law put the unlawfulness of the officer's conduct beyond debate. In practice, this often requires identifying a previous case with closely similar facts where a court held the conduct unconstitutional.

Qualified immunity is the single biggest reason meritorious federal excessive force cases get dismissed. It is also the reason Colorado's 2020 reform legislation matters so much.

Suing the City: Monell Liability

Individual officers are not the only potential defendants. Under Monell v. Department of Social Services (1978), a municipality itself can be held liable under § 1983 — but only when the constitutional violation was caused by the city's own policy, custom, failure to train, or failure to supervise. Cities cannot be sued simply because they employ the officer.

Monell claims are demanding to prove, but they are often the most important claims in a case. They expose patterns: prior complaints against the same officer that went nowhere, training materials that taught unconstitutional tactics, use-of-force policies that were deficient on paper or ignored in practice. When a department quietly rewrites its policy after an incident, that revision can itself be powerful evidence of what the policy should have said all along. Monell discovery is frequently where the real story of a case emerges.

The Colorado Claim: C.R.S. § 13-21-131

In June 2020, in the wake of the murder of George Floyd and the death of Elijah McClain in Aurora, the Colorado legislature passed Senate Bill 20-217, the Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity Act. Among its reforms, the bill created a new state-law civil rights claim, codified at C.R.S. § 13-21-131, that has made Colorado one of the most consequential jurisdictions in the country for police accountability.

Section 13-21-131 allows any person to sue a Colorado peace officer who deprives them of rights secured by the Colorado Constitution's Bill of Rights — including the state constitutional protection against unreasonable searches and seizures. The differences from federal law are significant:

• No qualified immunity. The statute expressly provides that qualified immunity is not a defense. The case is decided on whether the officer's conduct violated the constitution — full stop.
• State court forum. These claims belong in Colorado state courts, before Colorado juries, applying Colorado constitutional law, which Colorado courts may interpret more protectively than federal courts interpret the Fourth Amendment.
• No governmental immunity bar. The Colorado Governmental Immunity Act, which blocks most tort suits against public entities and employees, does not bar § 13-21-131 claims.
• Employer indemnification with personal exposure. The officer's employer must indemnify the officer — meaning the public entity pays the judgment — but if the employer determines the officer did not act in good faith and with a reasonable belief the conduct was lawful, the officer is personally liable for 5% of the judgment or $25,000, whichever is less.
• Attorney's fees. Prevailing plaintiffs recover reasonable attorney's fees and costs.

For force incidents occurring in Colorado after the statute's effective date, the strongest cases are often brought as parallel federal and state claims — or as state-only claims where qualified immunity would otherwise be the central battleground.

Deadlines: The Two-Year Clock

Both § 1983 claims (which borrow Colorado's personal injury limitations period) and § 13-21-131 claims are generally subject to a two-year statute of limitations. The clock typically starts running on the date of the incident.

Two years sounds like ample time. It is not. Excessive force cases require substantial pre-filing investigation: obtaining body-worn camera footage and dispatch audio, securing medical records, identifying witnesses, requesting internal affairs files and prior complaints through the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act, and analyzing whether viable Monell theories exist. Evidence degrades quickly — video retention policies expire, witnesses move, memories fade. A victim who waits eighteen months to call a lawyer has handed the defense an enormous head start.

If you or a family member has been injured by police force, the time to consult counsel is now, not later.

Wrongful Death and Survival Claims

When police force kills, the law provides two parallel avenues. The deceased person's constitutional claims survive their death and can be brought by the estate. Family members may also have claims for their own losses. These cases — police shootings, in-custody deaths, restraint asphyxia — are among the most serious matters in civil rights law, and they demand counsel with experience in both the constitutional doctrine and the forensic evidence (autopsy findings, use-of-force reconstruction, body camera synchronization) that drives them.

Colorado has seen the stakes firsthand. The City of Aurora paid $15 million in 2021 to settle claims arising from the death of Elijah McClain — at the time among the largest police settlements in state history — and the case led to criminal convictions of officers and paramedics and a statewide reckoning with how force is used and reviewed.

What a Strong Case Looks Like

Not every painful police encounter supports a lawsuit. Courts give officers latitude for split-second judgments, and juries are instructed to evaluate the scene as the officer reasonably perceived it. The cases that succeed tend to share characteristics:

• Video evidence that contradicts the official narrative or shows the absence of a threat
• Disproportionality between the conduct alleged and the force used — serious force against minor offenses, restrained suspects, or people in crisis
• Documented injuries with contemporaneous medical treatment
• A paper trail — prior complaints, policy violations, inconsistent reports, or post-incident policy changes that suggest the department knew it had a problem

If those elements are present, a well-built case can produce real accountability: compensation for the victim, exposure of departmental failures, and — through Monell litigation and consent decrees — structural change in how a department polices.

How These Cases Proceed

A typical excessive force case moves through several phases. First, investigation: records requests, footage acquisition, witness interviews, and expert consultation, often before any complaint is filed. Second, pleading: a complaint must allege specific facts as to each officer's conduct — group pleading gets dismissed. Third, discovery and motion practice: in federal court, expect an early qualified immunity motion, which can pause discovery and even generate an immediate appeal. Fourth, resolution: most cases settle, but settlement value is built through litigation strength — defendants pay serious money only when they face serious trial risk.

These cases are contested at every step by experienced government defense counsel with effectively unlimited resources. The plaintiff's lawyer must know Tenth Circuit qualified immunity law cold, understand the mechanics of § 13-21-131 litigation in state court, and be genuinely prepared to try the case to a jury.

Talk to a Colorado Civil Rights Attorney

If you were injured by police force in Colorado — or lost a family member to it — you have rights under both the U.S. and Colorado Constitutions, and you have a limited window to enforce them. An experienced civil rights attorney can evaluate the encounter, preserve the evidence, and tell you honestly whether you have a case.

Kosloski Law, PLLC represents victims of police misconduct throughout Colorado in excessive force, unlawful arrest, denial of medical care, and wrongful death cases. Consultations are free, and we handle civil rights cases on contingency — you pay nothing unless we recover for you.

We hold badges accountable.