DENVER — Colorado’s House Republicans issued a letter Monday admonishing their Democratic colleagues for criticizing Capitol security staff who carried a teenage protester out of the House’s gallery last week.
“You, the Speaker of the House, along with the Majority Leader, gave public statements to the media admonishing the actions of our Sergeants and State Patrol, and the Majority Leader implied their actions were driven by racism,” the House’s 19 Republican members wrote in a letter addressed to Democrat leaders Speaker Julie McCluskie and Majority Leader Monica Duran. “We find these statements and actions by colleagues and House leadership inaccurate and unacceptable.”
The letter comes five days after security personnel in the Capitol carried a teenager out of the House gallery because he wouldn’t move out of their way as they attempted to remove another teenager who was shouting about gun reform. Colorado State Patrol troopers, who oversee security in the Capitol, were called to the gallery Wednesday amid a broader student-led protest in and around the building. The student who was carried from the gallery was seated between security and the shouting teenager, videos show, and did not move when asked by troopers.
Videos also show one of the House’s sergeants — a quasi-security force that enforces rules and oversees access to the chamber — pushing a third student down and back into his seat after the student stood and began to shout during the incident. The student who was carried out was not arrested; he was barred from the building for the rest of the day.
Democratic lawmakers, several of whom ran up to the gallery to intervene, said that though one student was disruptive, law enforcement used unnecessary and disproportionate force to remove the teenager who was not yelling. Adams County Democratic Rep. Lorena Garcia previously told the Post that the student was scared that the situation would escalate and he would be shot.
The incident — watched by lawmakers on the House floor and captured on body-cam and cellphone video — sparked criticism from Democratic lawmakers and their leadership. In her statement, Duran, the majority leader, said she was “disappointed” in the incident, particularly because the student removed was Latino, while the student who disrupted the proceedings — and walked out on her own — was white.
In their letter, Republicans accused Democrats of participating in a “continuous pattern of mischaracterization and underappreciation” of law enforcement. They called the state troopers’ use of force “necessary to end the disruption.”
The latter also accused unnamed Democratic members of privately calling for the sergeants to lose their jobs. Garcia and Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon, both of whom walked with state patrol troopers as they escorted the student out last week, flatly denied that allegation Monday.
Asked who had called for the sergeants to be dismissed, Roger Hudson, the deputy chief of staff for the House Republicans, said that was how he interpreted McCluskie and Duran’s statements. McCluskie’s statement calls for an examination of the “responsibilities, protocols and training for our sergeants at arms.” A spokesman for the House Democrats said Monday that no one had called for the sergeants involved to be fired.
Bacon and Garcia both criticized the Republicans’ statement as frequently inaccurate and questioned why Republicans wouldn’t want to improve Capitol security; Hudson said Republicans welcomed an investigation but that they take issue with Democrats’ framing of the incident.
Bacon also criticized Republicans’ suggestion that the student was unharmed and said that the incident sent a message on “how voices will be met” in the Capitol.
“When someone comes here and says, ‘I don’t want to get shot,’ we should care about that,” Bacon said.
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