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The assistant district attorney in Arapahoe County, Ryan Brackley, announced Friday that his office will pursue a criminal investigation into an incident in February that saw on-duty Aurora firefighters driving a fire engine over the speed limit and toward an Aurora police officer. That caused the police sergeant to take evasive action to avoid a crash with the fire truck.
"We will look at it," Brackley told CBS News Colorado.
"We will call in the victim and interview him," said Brackley, a first step in investigating a case that he said his office learned about from a CBS News Colorado investigation this week. Brackley said his office was not aware of the video until it aired on CBS.
The video that was broadcast by CBS News Colorado showed an on-duty Aurora fire engine traveling on an access road in southeast Aurora toward a marked Aurora Police Department SUV that was traveling in the opposite direction on the two-lane road at about 7 p.m.
According to Aurora Fire Rescue investigative reports, the fire engine had its high beams on, and then the crew inside the rig, Engineer Ryan Endly and Lt. John Casessa, activated two spotlights on the top of the engine, essentially blinding the police sergeant who was driving the Aurora police cruiser. The fire engine was traveling over the 25 mph speed limit according to the investigation, and intentionally veered into the oncoming lane, forcing Police Sgt., Tony Spano, to take evasive action and run off the road to avoid a collision. The video shows that the fire engine did not stop after the altercation.
"Someone tried to kill me," Spano told investigators. "Why would you want to use a fire truck to kill a cop?", he asked. He also indicated he thought the firefighters should face criminal charges for their actions.
But that never happened. Aurora police never presented the case to the DA's office. In a statement Thursday to CBS News Colorado, police spokesperson Agent Matthew Longshore said, "The incident was thoroughly investigated by APD Command immediately following the incident, including obtaining video surveillance and reviewing body-worn camera. After gathering all the facts. It was decided that everything be turned over to AFR Command for an administrative investigation."
Longshore said APD was declining to be interviewed about that decision. The City of Aurora initially refused to release the video or written reports to CBS News Colorado, claiming they were "personnel files." But Aurora reversed that decision after follow-up communications with CBS News Colorado.
That fire department administrative investigation led to both Casessa and Endly being demoted in May to the rank of Fire Medic. They indicated what they did was just a "prank" or "horseplay."
Casessa told fire investigators, "We were messing around and thought it was someone we knew... the whole purpose of it was horseplay. It's not who I thought it was."
Both firefighters are appealing their demotions.
Spano has declined interview requests from CBS News Colorado.
Brackley said that prosecutors had "been informed by APD that they are not investigating this matter further. Given that there is an involved party (Spano) who wishes for further investigation, we will look into it," said Brackley.
David Lane, a veteran criminal defense attorney in Denver, said Friday, "Had I done that to a police car and then said, 'Hey, I was just kidding, it was a prank,' I would have been put in cuffs, taken to jail and charged with felonies."
He called the police department's decision not to present the case to the DA's office "pure corruption. There's no doubt the reason the DA's office was never contacted about this is because both firefighters and police fall under the auspices of Aurora Public Safety. They are basically 'bros' in Aurora public safety," said Lane.