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The City of Fort Collins has agreed to pay a man a half a million dollars after he was arrested in 2021 for driving under the influence, while sober. A blood test proved it.
Jesse Cunningham was on vacation with his family out of state. In July 2021, they witnessed a car crash in Fort Collins, and stopped to render aid and give a statement to police.
Body worn camera footage captured what happened next: then-Officer Jason Haferman said he smelled alcohol on Cunningham. He noted the military veteran's "glossy eyes." Cunningham admitted he had two beers hours prior to witnessing the crash. He rated his impairment a zero on a scale of zero to 10 and volunteered for field sobriety tests. According to Haferman's report, Cunningham did complete those field tests but, "did not complete them as a sober person." But his blood results states otherwise as they all came back clean.
"It was jaw-dropping at every step of the way," said Sarah Schielke, Cuninngham's attorney.
Schielke also represents four other plaintiffs. All five were arrested by Haferman under similar circumstances, and all five had their cases dismissed after their blood results cleared them. An internal investigation by the Fort Collins Police Department found in at least nine instances, no alcohol or drugs were found in blood tests for people Haferman had arrested on suspicion of DUI.
"This wasn't an isolated event," Schielke said. "This is part of a pattern, a pattern by Fort Collins DUI officer that was going completely unsupervised."
Cunningham's lawsuit was recently settled for $500,000. Under the settlement, he can't say anything disparaging about the department, but he hopes people take something away from this incident.
"It was a pretty rough night on the family," he said. "Maybe who hears the story or reads about the things that happened that evening, just take those things into consideration when you're dealing with law enforcement, but also law enforcement dealing with the general public. It's something that people can learn from."
Haferman was placed on administrative leave, but he later resigned. Fort Collins police responded in a statement, saying the settlement, "...is not an admission of liability or wrongdoing." It noted a separate case it successfully defended last September. The department settled the Cunningham case as well as another case "to avoid the continued expense and disruption of ongoing litigation."
Haferman has not worked there since 2022. He resigned before a scheduled termination meeting with Fort Collins Police Chief Jeff Swoboda, the department said.
Cunningham's attorney says this wasn't just a one-officer-issue. She told 9NEWS she plans to file another lawsuit against two other Fort Collins officers for similar incidents in the coming days.
