A federal judge has ordered a jury trial for three Fort Collins police officers accused of using excessive force during a 2021 arrest, after body-camera footage showed one man standing in his underwear with his arms raised when he was shocked with a Taser, and another pepper-sprayed moments after asserting his right to record the encounter.
Judge Narrows Claims but Sends Core Allegations to Jury
U.S. District Judge Charlotte N. Sweeney issued a summary judgment order on August 6, 2026, that dismissed some claims while allowing others to proceed to trial in the case, formally titled San Roman et al. v. Nace et al. and originally filed July 14, 2023, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. As the Denver Gazette reports, Sweeney found that a jury could determine whether Cpl. Mindy Nace violated Angel San Roman's constitutional rights when she used her Taser on him, and whether Sgt. Kyle Bendzsa could also be held liable for directing Nace to use force. The judge also ruled that a jury must decide whether Officer Kevin Park unlawfully retaliated against Carlos Lopez for recording the encounter with his phone.
The case stems from a July 16, 2021 incident in Old Town Fort Collins, when police arrested San Roman, then 27, and Lopez, then 26, on fifth-degree felony charges of vehicle trespass and theft from a vehicle, with Lopez also facing a felony charge for possession of a weapon by a previous offender, according to Townsquare Media's reporting at the time. Officers were investigating a report of stolen firearms taken from a parked vehicle, and police reports stated that weapons and other items later identified by the theft victim as his own were found in the plaintiffs' vehicle.
Shotgun Sound Prompted Officers to Press Forward
Court filings describe how Officer Kevin Alexander first investigated the reported firearm theft before Bendzsa, who had allegedly seen the plaintiffs handling long guns, reported hearing a sound that could have been someone racking a shotgun and instructed officers to press on. The Denver Gazette's report notes that Bendzsa then told Nace to use her Taser on San Roman. Body-worn camera screenshots included in the judge's order show San Roman standing in only his underwear, his pants and shorts around his ankles and his arms extended in the air, having removed nearly all of his clothing to demonstrate he had no gun. According to the imagery cited in the ruling, San Roman remained in that position for two seconds before Nace deployed her Taser.
San Roman fell backward and struck his head after being shocked, and multiple officers on scene observed him unconscious and not breathing before requesting a medical evaluation, per the Denver Gazette's account. The severity of that injury is a central factor courts weigh when evaluating Fourth Amendment excessive force claims. Sweeney's order concluded that a jury could find Nace violated San Roman's constitutional rights and that Bendzsa could also face liability for ordering the Taser's use.
Pepper Spray Came Seconds After Lopez Asserted Right to Record
While San Roman was being confronted, Lopez was recording the interaction on his phone and asserted his First Amendment right to do so. Court records cited by the Denver Gazette show that Park pepper-sprayed Lopez just 17 seconds into their interaction, immediately after Lopez made that assertion. Park had ordered Lopez to put down his phone and threatened that force would be used if he refused; Park later testified that one reason he pepper-sprayed Lopez was that Lopez would not lower the phone. Park then took Lopez's phone, and other Fort Collins officers handcuffed him before Park arrested him.
Sweeney found that a reasonable juror could conclude Park pepper-sprayed Lopez specifically because Lopez was recording, allowing the First Amendment retaliation claim to proceed to trial. That protection traces to Irizarry v. Yehia, a July 2022 ruling in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit established that the First Amendment clearly protects the right of individuals to film police officers performing official duties in public, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Tenth Circuit precedent binds federal district courts across Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming.
Qualified Immunity Shielded Some Claims, But Not All
Not every claim against Park survived. Sweeney dismissed the excessive force claim tied to Park's use of pepper spray, granting him qualified immunity after finding no prior court case had put him on notice that pepper-spraying Lopez under those circumstances clearly violated his rights, as Colorado Politics reported. Qualified immunity shields government officials from personal liability unless their conduct violates clearly established statutory or constitutional rights that a reasonable officer would have recognized, a legal bar that frequently ends police misconduct suits before they reach a jury. The officers had asserted qualified immunity as a defense, and the defendants had moved to end the case entirely without a trial.
Sweeney also dismissed San Roman and Lopez's claims against the City of Fort Collins itself, which the plaintiffs had named as an additional defendant, alleging the city failed to train, supervise, and discipline its officers. The judge found the plaintiffs could not hold Fort Collins liable because they failed to demonstrate an unconstitutional city policy or a failure-to-train custom, according to the same Colorado Politics report.
Trial Set for Late November
With municipal claims and the pepper-spray excessive force claim dismissed, the case moving toward trial now centers on three surviving claims: excessive force against Nace and Bendzsa over the Taser deployment, and First Amendment retaliation against Park over the pepper spray. Sweeney has scheduled the jury trial to begin in late November 2026 in Denver federal court, per Colorado Politics. San Roman and Lopez sued the officers for excessive force and filed the retaliation claim against Park, setting up a trial that will ask jurors to weigh officer safety concerns during a suspected firearm theft investigation against the constitutional protections both men say were violated that night in Old Town Fort Collins.
