A gay law student
filed a complaint against a Denver police officer
accusing him of failing to arrest an alleged hate-crime
perpetrator, reports RockyMountainNews.com.
Nima Daivari, 24,
of New York, said Officer Richard Boehnlein told him to
"go home" after he was attacked by another man on the 16th
Street Mall in Denver.
Daivari, in
Denver visiting a cousin, said he was out on Sunday after
midnight when a man walked past him and made an antigay
comment. He asked the man what he had said, and then a
physical confrontation occurred, Daivari said, with
both men hitting each other.
Officers soon
arrived and separated the men. Daivari said he repeatedly
asked Boehnlein to press charges, but the attacker was
instead let go.
Daivari went to
the police station after the fight to file a report about
the attack and the officer's conduct.
Boehnlein, who
has been with the department since 2006, did not file a
report after the attack occurred.
The officer is
being investigated by the police internal affairs
department.
A gay rights
advocacy group, the Colorado Anti-Violence Program, has been
gathering statistics and information about hate crimes and
bias-motivated crimes in Colorado and plans to release
its findings next month, said the program's director
of victims' services, Kelly Costello. (The Advocate)