Daria Jalali: Plea, 45-Day Sentence, and the Karen Garner Case

Daria Jalali is a former Loveland, Colorado police officer who pleaded guilty in June 2022 to failing to intervene during the violent arrest of Karen Garner, a 73-year-old woman with dementia. On August 5, 2022, a Larimer County judge sentenced her to 45 days in jail, three years of probation, and 250 hours of community service. She was 28 at the time of sentencing, had no prior criminal record, and agreed never to seek employment as a peace officer again.¹²

What Jalali Did During the Arrest

On June 26, 2020, Officer Austin Hopp stopped Karen Garner as she walked home from a Loveland Walmart, where employees said she had left without paying for about $14 in items. Hopp forced Garner to the ground. Jalali arrived as the second officer on scene, with Garner already restrained.¹

Body-camera footage shows Jalali pressing her hands on Garner and yelling “Quit!” as Garner struggled, and telling her, “Stand up! We’re not going to hold you.” Afterward, audio captured Jalali saying, “I’m a little bloody and a little muddy but that’s how it works.”³ Garner left the encounter with a dislocated shoulder, a broken arm, a sprained wrist, and extensive bruising, and was then placed in a holding cell for hours without medical care.⁴

Jalali later testified that she believed Garner was intoxicated rather than cognitively impaired, and that she read Garner’s complaints about tight handcuffs as an attempt to have them removed.⁵

The Booking-Area Video

Station surveillance footage played a central role in how the case was viewed. It showed Jalali sitting with Hopp and a third officer, Tyler Blackett, reviewing the body-camera footage of the arrest while Garner sat handcuffed and crying in a cell about ten feet away. Hopp fist-bumped Jalali and said, “I thought it went great… I think we crushed it.” Jalali described the body-camera feed as “like live TV” and said, “Bodycams are my favorite thing to watch. I could watch livestream bodycams all day.”⁴

As the review continued, Jalali grew visibly uncomfortable. When Hopp asked, “Hear the pop?” — an apparent reference to Garner’s dislocating shoulder — Jalali covered her ears, said “I hate this” repeatedly, and asked Hopp to stop the video.⁶ The footage became public in April 2021, when Garner’s family filed a federal civil rights lawsuit and their attorneys released the videos, triggering an investigation by the 8th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team.⁷

The Charges and the Plea

In May 2021, the 8th Judicial District Attorney’s Office charged Jalali with three misdemeanors: failure to intervene in the use of excessive force (class 1), failure to report an excessive use of force (class 1), and first-degree official misconduct (class 2). She turned herself in on May 20, 2021 and was released on a $5,000 personal recognizance bond.⁸

On June 22, 2022, Jalali pleaded guilty to the single count of failure to intervene. The other two charges were dismissed. She also agreed never to seek employment as a peace officer again and to cooperate with a nonprosecution agreement from the United States Attorney’s office.¹

Her Sentence

Larimer County Judge Joshua Lehman sentenced Jalali on August 5, 2022. The sentence included:

45 days in jail, with two days of credit for time served
Three years of probation
250 hours of community service
A mental health evaluation
A requirement to maintain at least 35 hours of employment per week
No contact with the Garner family³

Lehman was sharply critical. He called the events “an abysmal failure” and said it was “incomprehensible” that two officers could not recognize Garner was “terrified” and suffering from a mental health condition rather than being defiant.⁵ He told Jalali she appeared “more concerned with protecting yourself and officer Hopp” than with protecting and serving, and referenced her romantic relationship with Hopp as a possible factor in her failure to act.³

District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin said the officers’ “reckless overreaction,” “blatant disregard for citizens,” and later “celebration” and “coverup” showed “a fundamental disregard for the basic duties to protect and serve and to act with integrity and honesty.”⁹

What the Defense Argued

Jalali’s attorney, Anna Geigle, argued the failure to intervene was not intentional or malicious. Geigle presented a neuropsychological evaluation indicating Jalali had a “profound naivety” and difficulty with the “initial uptake of visual information,” which the defense said impaired her ability to process the scene in real time.² Geigle also pointed to Jalali’s personnel records, saying she had “repeatedly had poor performance in written and physical tests” at Loveland and a prior department, but supervisors had consistently excused her performance, leaving her to believe she was meeting standards.¹⁰

The Law She Was Convicted Under

Jalali was one of the first officers convicted under Colorado Senate Bill 20-217, signed into law on June 19, 2020, one week before Garner’s arrest. The statute makes it a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 364 days in jail, for a peace officer to fail to intervene when witnessing unlawful physical force by another officer. It also requires officers to report such incidents, mandates permanent revocation of certification for those convicted, and strips qualified immunity from officers in civil actions for failing to intervene.¹¹¹²

State Representative Leslie Herod, who helped craft the bill, said the criminal penalties were designed to break the “blue code of silence” that historically shielded officers when colleagues used excessive force.¹³

What Happened to the Other Officers

Austin Hopp, who caused Garner’s injuries, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault, a felony, in March 2022. Judge Michelle Brinegar sentenced him in May 2022 to five years in prison followed by three years of mandatory parole and permanently barred him from law enforcement work. Hopp was released from prison on January 21, 2026.¹⁴

A third officer at the scene, Tyler Blackett, resigned. No criminal charges against him were publicly reported.¹⁵¹⁶¹⁷

Karen Garner died on November 27, 2023, at 76, from complications of dementia. In a statement, her family asked that she be remembered “not as the ‘old lady who was beat up by a cop’ but as a vibrant, creative woman who loved life and enjoyed the simplicity of taking a walk and picking wildflowers.”¹⁸

1
CPR News. Second Loveland Officer Pleads Guilty in Karen Garner Case
2
Denver7. Former Loveland Police Officer Sentenced to 45 Days in Jail, Probation in Karen Garner Case
3
CBS News Colorado. Loveland Police Officer Daria Jalali Sentenced in Karen Garner Rough Arrest
4
CNN. Loveland Police Officers Video Use of Force
5
Colorado Sun. Former Colorado Police Officer Sentenced to 45 Days in Jail in Rough Arrest of Woman With Dementia
6
ABC7. Karen Garner Video Loveland Colorado Police Arrest
7
ABC News. Loveland Officers Charged in Rough Arrest of 73-Year-Old Woman
8
Loveland Reporter-Herald. Former Loveland Police Officer Daria Jalali Advised of Her Rights in Court
9
Denver Post. Loveland Karen Garner Daria Jalali
10
Loveland Reporter-Herald. Former Loveland Police Officer Daria Jalali Sentenced to 45 Days Jail, 3 Years Probation
11
Colorado General Assembly. SB20-217 Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity
12
Colorado Municipal League. Requirements of SB 20-217 Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity
13
USA Today. Colorado Officer Convicted Not Intervening During Violent Arrest
14
Loveland Reporter-Herald. Former Loveland Police Officer Austin Hopp Released From Prison After 2020 Assault of Karen Garner
15
Criminal Legal News. Dementia Patient Wins $3 Million Settlement After Beat Down by Colorado Cops
16
Denver7. Loveland Sergeant Involved in Karen Garner Arrest Resigns Following Independent Investigation
17
CPR News. Loveland Police Sergeant Resigns in Karen Garner Arrest
18
CBS News Colorado. Karen Garner Passes Away From Complications With Dementia