A disgraced Colorado cop who broke a 73 year-old dementia sufferer’s arm during a violent arrest could be sentenced to probation after striking a plea deal that has infuriated his victim’s family.
Loveland police officer Austin Hopp, 26, was fired and charged with second degree assault, attempting to influence a public servant and official misconduct in May 2021 for the arrest of Karen Garner after the elderly woman walked out of Walmart in June 2020 with a soda she’d forgotten to pay for.
Hopp faced a mandatory sentence of 10 to 32 years on those counts – but he’s now pleaded guilty to a single charge of second-degree assault, a class four felony, that could see him walking away with only probation.
‘She had pleas that were ignored,’ Garner’s daughter-in-law Shannon Steward told reporters outside the courthouse on Wednesday. ‘And we have to come here today to honor him for this plea deal. It’s a slap in the face.’
In June 2020, Hopp pushed the 80-pound grandmother, then 73-years-old, to the ground and arrested her for allegedly walking out of a Walmart with less than $14 in products, according to bodycam footage released as part of a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Garner’s family.
The lawsuit alleges she suffered a dislocated shoulder, a broken humerus and a sprained wrist. A follow-up video from inside the police department shows Hopp boasting about the arrest as Garner languished in a cell for the next six hours, crying out in pain because of her arm.
Disgraced cop Austin Hopp is pictured in court Wednesday, when he pleaded guilty to a single count of assault on a dementia-stricken woman in a plea deal that could see him avoid jail
Austin Hopp, 26, pled guilty to a single charge of second-degree assault, a class four felony, on Wednesday
The former Loveland, Colorado police officer, right, was first charged with second degree assault, attempting to influence a public servant and official misconduct last year
He faced up to 32 years in prison for the 2020 arrest of Karen Garner, a then-73-year-old woman with dementia, who allegedly walked out of a Walmart with less than $14 in products
Garner, who frequently forgets things, repeated, ‘I’m going home,’ over and over again as the officer shoved her to the ground, breaking her arm in the process
Loveland city leaders fired Hopp and his partner Daria Jalali last year. They also paid Garner, now 75-years-old, a $3 million settlement, but nothing can repair the damage done to her dwindling quality of life, daughter-in-law Shannon Steward told DailyMail.com over the weekend.
The standard sentence for second-degree assault is two to eight years, but 8th Judicial District Judge Michelle Brinegar could choose choose probation or Community Corrections after hearing evidence from both sides at an upcoming sentencing hearing on May 5, according to the Loveland Reporter-Herald.
On Wednesday, Steward asked the court why Hopp was being given a plea deal.
Prior to the incident, her mother-in-law lived alone with constant monitoring from family who used a tracker on her phone to see where she was.
She had left it at home the day she was roughed up by Hopp.
Today, she lives in a facility for dementia patients, suffers from PTSD and no longer recognizes her three children and nine grandchildren.
‘Karen would repeat things, she would show me her new bedspread three times while I was visiting, that sort of thing. But she wasn’t leaving the stove on, it wasn’t dangerous. She loved to walk, she loved to be active,’ Steward told DailyMail.com.
Hopp bragged about the arrest as Garner languished in a cell for the next six hours crying out in pain because of a fractured arm and dislocated shoulder. She is pictured sat in her cell and in pain
Meanwhile, Hopp bragged about the arrest, saying, ‘I think it went great. I think we crushed it’
Shannon Steward, Garner’s daughter-in-law, railed against the plea deal on Wednesday. ‘She had pleas that were ignored,’ she said of Garner. ‘And we have to come here today to honor him for this plea deal. It’s a slap in the face’
‘After the incident all she could say was, why did they do this to me? Why did they do this to me? She couldn’t discuss it, she just repeated herself over and over.
‘She didn’t trust anyone. The doctors and nurses would try to come in her room and she would push the doors shut. She wanted to be left alone. She couldn’t get a Covid vaccine because she wouldn’t let anyone touch her.
‘We were told by her care facility that the PTSD has accelerated her dementia. She wouldn’t even let us hug her.’
Steward said the family explicitly asked prosecutors not to enter a plea deal when they first met with prosecutors last May, according to KUSA.
She said the family asked for a week to consider the plea deal when prosecutors brought it up last week, but that they still came to the conclusion that they wanted a trial.
‘I’m really disappointed that the district attorney would offer a plea,’ said John Steward, Garner’s son and Shannon’s husband, last week. ‘Caught us off-guard, shocked, disappointed.’
District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin promoted the plea deal in a tweet Wednesday.
‘This result brings significant criminal accountability for his assault of Ms. Garner & shows such abuse of power will not be tolerated,’ he said.
The Loveland Police Department praised McLaughlin’s ‘pursuit of justice.’
‘What happened to Ms. Garner is a stark reminder that no police officer is above the law. We appreciate the DA’s efforts in pursuing justice for Ms. Garner and her family,’ the department said.
Garner’s family says she hasn’t been the same since the incident and now lives in a facility with dementia patients
Hopp’s body camera footage shows him catching up to her as she walked through a field. On the left, his partner Daria Jalali, who was also later fired
Jalali faces misdemeanor charges of failing to report excessive use of force, failure to intervene and first-degree official misconduct. DailyMail.com revealed that she was previously in a romantic relationship with Hopp
Steward said she believes there’s more than enough evidence to secure a conviction for all three of the original charges.
‘I’m very disappointed,’ she said, according to the Reporter-Herald. ‘We’ve gone so far. There’s so much evidence that he should be going to trial. I don’t understand this. We don’t understand a lot of things. Our God is much greater and powerful than this, and at the end of the day he’ll see justice.’
Body-worn camera footage shows Hopp catching up to Garner as she picks flowers on her route home and giving her barely seconds to comply before he savagely bundles her to the ground and hogties her.
Garner, who frequently forgets things because she suffers from dementia and sensory aphasia, cries out in pain and repeats the phrase, ‘I’m going home,’ over and over as the snarling officer drags her to his squad car.
As she languished in a cell for the next six hours crying out in pain because of a fractured arm and dislocated shoulder, Hopp was recorded on his police department’s CCTV system laughing and joking as he played back his footage to colleagues.
‘Ready for the pop?’ he was overheard saying as he relived the moment he pinned Garner to his vehicle and violently yanked her arm behind her back.
‘I think it went great. I think we crushed it,’ he sniggered, giving his partner Daria Jalali a celebratory fist bump. ‘I was like, “All right, let’s wrestle, girl. Let’s wreck it!'”
DailyMail.com revealed last April that Hopp and Jalali, who also lost her job for her part in Garner’s arrest, were previously in a romantic relationship.
She faces misdemeanor charges of failing to report excessive use of force, failure to intervene and first-degree official misconduct.
