A travelling musician has won a $200,000 payout after officers from a notorious Colorado police department screamed gibberish Spanish at him while setting a K-9 on him.
Officers from the city of Aurora's police department raided the home where Salvador Alonso Guerrero Salmeron, a professional musician from Mexico, was staying in March 2023.
The cops, whose police department has a history of scandals, were at the 1400 block of South Yampa Court to execute an arrest warrant for drug charges on a different man.
When they entered the home, they began screaming nonsensical orders in Spanish, Salmeron's attorney said.
He told FOX31 that the order included phrases like 'fart police, fart the wood. We have a police fart, entrance wood.'
During the raid, a K-9 attacked the musician. Photos filed in an Arapahoe County court showed a large dog biting the man's arm as he attempted to show police a document.
Salmeron, who does not speak English, said he did not understand why the raid was taking place and was trying to show police that he was in the US on a tourist visa.
After his attorneys filed a civil rights lawsuit against the Aurora Police Department in October, a jury awarded the musician the large payout.
Salvador Alonso Guerrero Salmeron (pictured), a professional musician from Mexico, was staying in Aurora in 2023 when police raided his home
Photos showed him attempting to pass a document to police as a dog attacked him
On top of this, it found Aurora Police Officer Grant Peet liable for malicious prosecution and Officer Robert Wong liable for excessive force during the raid.
According to FOX31, Salmeron's attorneys said in a press release on November 3: 'Salvador has lived with the physical and emotional consequences of an attack that never should have happened, and the indignity of being treated like a criminal.
'This verdict finally sets the record straight.'
Aurora Police Department's recent record is checkered. In 2019, unarmed black man Elijah McClain died following a 'brutal' encounter with its officers.
McClain, a massage therapist who volunteered to play violin to soothe animals in a local shelter, was placed in a neck hold by police officer Randy Roedema and given an overdose of ketamine by Aurora Fire Rescue paramedics.
The young man was taken to hospital where he died shortly after the encounter.
In 2024, Roedema was sentenced to 14 months in jail after he was convicted of homicide and third degree assault. Two other officers, Nathan Woodyard and Jason Rosenblatt, were acquitted.
Meanwhile, two Denver-area paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Peter Cichuniec, were found guilty of criminally negligent homicide.
Elijah McClain was fatally injured while being arrested in Aurora, Colorado, in August 2019. He died days later of his injuries
Aurora police officer Randy Roedema (pictured) was convicted of homicide and third degree assault following Elijah McClain's death
And in 2024, the Daily Mail revealed that police knew Venezuelan super gang Tren de Aragua (TdA) had taken control of three apartment buildings in the city but denied the city had a gang problem.
The Mail obtained city records where staffers admitted three rental properties were 'in complete control' of TdA and claimed that many more than just three properties were victims of the 'criminal infestation.'
A June 2024 police report stated: 'As of now, the Aurora-Multi-Family Properties are in the complete control of the Gangs.'
The Daily Mail has contacted the Aurora Police Department for comment.
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