He'll be punished for arrest threat over anti-Bush label

By Brian D. Crecente, Rocky Mountain News
January 26, 2005

Denver police Sgt. Michael Karasek will be disciplined for threatening to arrest a woman for displaying on her truck a profane bumper sticker about President Bush, Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Tuesday.

An internal affairs investigation took just a day to complete, and the allegation against the officer was upheld, Whitman said.

He declined to say what the discipline would be but said that all the department's officers will receive "training about the topic."

About 11 a.m. Monday, Shasta Bates, 26, was confronted by a man while standing in a UPS store. The man told her he was upset by her bumper sticker, which read "F--- Bush."

The man then went outside and flagged down Karasek, who was working off-duty in uniform at the shopping center, in the 800 block of South Monaco Parkway.

After reading the sticker and talking to the man, Karasek went into the store to confront Bates.

Bates, three UPS employees and a Rocky Mountain News reporter who happened to be there all say that the officer threatened to arrest the woman if she didn't remove the bumper sticker from her truck.

Bates filed a complaint against the officer with the department.

Karasek told investigators that he did threaten the woman with arrest, but at the time he thought he was following the law, a police source said. He realized shortly after the confrontation that he was wrong, the source said.

The Rocky Mountain News story spurred powerful and mixed reactions.

Several directed the obscenity at Karasek or Bates, while others were more philosophical.

Bates was surprised at the attention the incident drew. She added that she understood the officer made a mistake.

"Everybody makes mistakes," she said, "but you have to get punished for them."