The arrests were the result of two law enforcement investigations conducted by the Denver District Attorney’s Office, Denver Police Department, Aurora Police Department, FBI, ATF, the Regional Anti-Violence Enforcement Network and the Violent Criminal Enterprise Task Force, according to a district attorney’s office news release.

“These arrests send an unmistakable message that law enforcement agencies throughout the Denver metro area are committed to working together to disrupt and disband dangerous criminal organizations. The streets of Denver are safer today because of these two investigations and I am grateful to the many law enforcement officers who have worked so hard on these cases to get us to this point,” McCann said.

About $780,000 of cash and property were stolen, and the members also now face charges of aggravated robbery, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms and violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act.

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Now, the family of 65-year-old Arthur Janis is seeking an apology.

“They continued to deny that they cut his hair,” said Keith Janis, a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation, of his brother. “They tried to make us all sound crazy.”

On Thursday, UCHealth officials released a statement saying they had determined through an investigation that Arthur Janis arrived at their hospital with shoulder-length hair that hospital staff cut shorter to prevent the intensive care patient from developing a pressure ulcer.

Dan Weaver, UCHealth’s vice president of communications, said the patient was not identified as someone with Native American roots before hospital staff cut his hair.

“Our medical team acted appropriately given the information they had available to them and the acute medical needs of the patient,” Weaver wrote in the statement. “We continue to work with the family to coordinate his ongoing care.”

Keith Janis said his brother was medically transported from Rapid City, South Dakota, to UCHealth University of Colorado Hospital in August after suffering severe chest and stomach pain. Arthur Janis experienced blood clotting and a stroke while at UCHealth, leaving him drifting in and out of consciousness, Keith Janis told The Post in an interview. Arthur remains hospitalized there.

Family members from across the country visited Arthur Janis in the hospital, but expenses kept them from staying long, his brother said.

In October, UCHealth staff arranged a video call between Arthur Janis and his sister so she could check in on him. Keith Janis said his sister noticed Arthur’s waist-length hair had been chopped short, seemingly haphazardly.

“All of us have long hair because it’s a part of our culture,” Keith Janis said. “In Lakota culture, hair has all the memories of your whole life. It has the love of your mother who brushed it and braided it and poured her love and strength into it.”

UCHealth’s Weaver said Arthur Janis had matted hair at the back of his head and that his medical team had to “carefully trim” for health reasons. He said the hospital could share some information about Arthur’s situation with permission from his sister, who is his medical decision-maker and has medical power of attorney.

When a Lakota tribal member dies, Keith Janis said their long hair is cut and becomes part of a memorial for their family members.

“The hair is so important to us and has real cultural significance,” Keith Janis said.

Seeing his brother’s hair cut was particularly gutting to Keith Janis because it transported him back to the memory of himself and Arthur being forcibly separated from their parents as children and taken to a Native American boarding school, where their hair was cut against their will.

“We have been growing it out since then,” Keith Janis said.

Upset by the haircut, Keith Janis raised money for himself and other Indigenous activists to travel to Colorado and learn about what had happened. In early November, Keith Janis and loved ones made the trip from South Dakota. Keith Janis said he and his group were met at UCHealth by “a security detail.”

“We didn’t come in stomping and yelling or making a scene,” Keith Janis said. “We’re all very humble people. We just wanted to see Arthur.”

Keith Janis met with UCHealth staff multiple times, asking what happened to his brother’s hair. He provided The Post with recordings of those meetings, which appear to show UCHealth officials telling the Janis family that Arthur had his long hair when he entered their care but returned to the hospital from the Center at Lowry, a medical recovery and rehabilitation facility, having had his hair cut.

A recording of a meeting with Center at Lowry staff that Keith Janis provided to The Post documented an employee there saying she was comfortable testifying under oath that Arthur did not have his hair cut at their facility.

UCHealth told Keith Janis in the recordings that the situation was under investigation and that staff would review surveillance footage and conduct employee interviews. But Keith Janis said he’s only been provided a couple of blurry still photographs from the security footage, and that UCHealth has not shown him any video.

As news of the situation spread, CU Regent Nolbert Chavez said he wanted answers from UCHealth about what happened, noting the connection between the university and the hospital on CU’s Anschutz Medical Campus.

Chavez said UCHealth officials offered two different explanations to him and other CU leaders, first saying they had video that showed Arthur Janis initially arriving at the hospital with short hair, then claiming to have footage showing Arthur leaving the hospital with long hair and returning from the rehab facility with shorter hair.

“UCHealth has lied to the Board of Regents, to the community and to the family that they have a video that proves their position,” Chavez said. “They continue to withhold it and therefore I believe that it either doesn’t exist or doesn’t show what they say it does. They have lied to everyone.”

Chavez said he plans to ask his fellow regents to review how UCHealth board members are appointed in light of this incident.

Before heading back to South Dakota, Keith Janis filed a report with the Aurora Police Department. Joe Moylan, a spokesman for Aurora police, confirmed the department is investigating the incident, but said he couldn’t share any additional information due to the active investigation.

Keith Janis said UCHealth officials eventually called his sister, Arthur Janis’s medical proxy, in November and admitted the hospital did cut their brother’s hair

“I decided I’d call an even bigger group together and get down there and demand from them an apology for the humiliation they put me and all my relatives through and them knowing they cut his hair and lying to us,” Keith Janis said.

Keith Janis and his loved ones traveled back to UCHealth on Thanksgiving — a day he noted represents loss and genocide to Native American people.

“We demanded an apology from them for what they have put us through,” Keith Janis said. “A public apology from that hospital because of all the lies and deception. They wouldn’t give it. We have not gotten our apology.”

The family is now looking into legal options, he said.

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Aurora officers responded to reports of a crash at East Pinewood Drive and South Wheatlands Parkway just after 9 p.m. Sunday, according to a post from the police department on X, the social media platform previously known as Twitter.

The intersection is located in Aurora’s Wheatlands neighborhood, across from the Wheatlands Community Park.

When officers arrived on scene, they found three victims. One person died from their injuries at the scene, and paramedics transported two others to the hospital, police stated on social media. The Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office will identify the victim.

The crash investigation team determined that a Mazda SUV carrying two adult, male passengers and an adult, male driver was traveling northbound on South Wheatlands Parkway at a high rate of speed when it struck the median and rolled several times, coming to rest on the sidewalk, according to a Monday morning update from the Aurora Police Department.

An 18-year-old passenger was ejected from the vehicle during the crash and died on scene, the update stated. The other two men were transported to the hospital with minor injuries.

The intersection was closed for nearly 5 hours during the crash investigation. East Pinewood Drive and South Wheatlands Parkway reopened around 2 a.m. Monday, police said.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to correct the number of individuals involved with the crash. The Aurora Police Department initially reported four individuals were involved in the crash, but a later release stated only three people were in the car when it crashed.

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Officers responded to reports a crash at South Havana Avenue and East Iliff Street in west Aurora just after 10 p.m. Sunday, the Aurora Police Department said in a post on social media.

According to the preliminary investigation, the crash happened after a motorcycle collided with a car, police stated in the post.

The motorcyclist died at the scene. The victim will be identified by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office.

No other injuries were reported.

Eastbound Iliff Street was closed for more than 5 hours during the overnight police investigation, eventually reopening around 3:30 a.m., Aurora police stated online.

The crash remains under investigation.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Around 12:15 a.m. Monday, Aurora officers responded to reports of a shooting in the 9500 block of East Colfax Avenue, near Clinton Street, according to a post on social media from the police department.

When officers arrived on scene, they found two people suffering from gunshot wounds and a third person who had been physically assaulted, the department stated online.

All three victims were transported to a local hospital by paramedics, and one of the gunshot victims was in critical condition, according to the Aurora Police Department.. As of 6 a.m. Monday, the unidentified victim was in stable condition.

A large perimeter was set up after the shooting as police searched for the suspects involved.

Around 1:30 a.m., police said online that the suspects were last seen running near East 13th Avenue and Dayton Street. In a 6 a.m. update, they announced that a person of interest had been taken into custody.

The investigation is ongoing and no other information is available at this time, police said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Officers were in the area when they heard gunshots about 12:15 a.m., the Aurora Police Department reported on X. They responded to the shooting in the 1300 block of Joliet Street, where they found the more than 100 young people fleeing the party.

Four people were shot and taken to hospitals: an 18-year-old woman, two 19-year-old men and a 17-year-old boy, police said. None of their wounds appeared to be life-threatening.

One vehicle “created a safety risk” to the fleeing partygoers, so officers attempted a traffic stop. The vehicle didn’t stop, and officers pursued the vehicle until they could disable it.

The driver, an 18-year-old man ran, but officers apprehended him, police said. Officers recovered a handgun with a large-capacity magazine in the vehicle, but police later said on X they do not believe he was involved in the shooting.

He was booked into jail on a felony charge of vehicular eluding and misdemeanor charges of reckless driving, possession of a weapon with a large capacity magazine and obstruction of a peace officer.

Detectives are investigating and trying to figure out who was at the party and who was involved in the shooting.

Anyone with information can contact Metro Denver Crimestoppers at 720-913-7867 and be eligible for a reward of up to $2,000.

Jurors will be asked to decide whether two Aurora paramedics violated the law when they injected Elijah McClain with a maximum dose of the sedative ketamine in a trial that’s being watched by first responders across the country — a rare case in which medical personnel face criminal prosecution over a fatal police encounter.

Opening statements on Wednesday in the trial of Lt. Peter Cichuniec and Jeremy Cooper focused on what role paramedics have at the scene when police call them for help, whether the two paramedics had a legitimate reason to inject McClain with ketamine in the first place, and whether they followed protocol once they decided to administer the sedative.

Defense attorneys for Cichuniec and Cooper attempted to direct blame toward the Aurora police officers who stopped McClain — a 23-year-old unarmed Black man who was walking home — that night in August 2019.

Shana Beggan, who represents Cooper, said the paramedics were not in control of McClain’s care until he was placed on a gurney and handcuffs were removed.

The police officers slammed McClain to the ground, used pressure points, including a carotid hold, and pushed their body weight onto McClain to hold him to the ground, Beggan told the jury. The paramedics did not participate in doing those things and were left waiting for police to release McClain to them for medical care.

They also relied on police to tell them what had happened prior to their arrival and to describe McClain’s behavior during the struggle as they made their decisions on how to treat him.

“You don’t get to tap in,” Beggan said of the paramedics. “Evidence will show they don’t get to take the cuffs off.”

Cooper and Cichuniec are charged with reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide and two counts of assault, including one count for excessive drugging. Opening statements began Wednesday morning in Adams County District Court before Judge Mark D. Warner, and the trial — the third of three in the McClain case — is expected to last for several weeks.

The prosecution of the two parademics is receiving national attention and is being closely watched by first responders and those who train them. On Wednesday, firefighters, EMTs and paramedics filled four benches in the courtroom to listen as prosecutors presented their case for proving the two paramedics killed McClain with a dose ketamine that would have been appropriate for a 200-pound man, not for the 140-pound McClain.

Dr. Stephen Cina, a forensic pathologist contracted by Adams County, will testify that ketamine caused McClain to die after he had choked on his own vomit.

The Adams County coroner’s original autopsy report said both the cause and manner of McClain’s death were undetermined. The office last year released an amended autopsy report that found the manner of death remained undetermined, meaning no ruling was made as to whether McClain’s death was a homicide, accident or occurred naturally. But his cause of death had been changed to “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.”

Shannon Stevenson, the state solicitor general in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, walked the jury through Aurora Fire Rescue’s protocol for deciding when to give a person ketamine and said the state will prove that Cichuniec and Cooper failed to follow their training.

“The defendants were called to the scene to help Elijah McClain, to treat him as their patient,” Stevenson said. “Instead he’s dead. He would have been better off if they never came.”

“Not about whether mistakes were made”

McClain was walking home from a convenience store on Aug. 24, 2019, when an unidentified person called 911 to report him for acting strange. McClain was wearing a hat, face mask, a jacket and long pants and waving his hands in the air.

The first police officer on the scene, Nathan Woodyard, went hands-on within eight seconds of exiting his patrol car as McClain told the officer he was walking home. Two other officers, Jason Rosenblatt and Randy Roedema, soon joined Woodyard as they wrestled McClain to the ground.

Woodyard put McClain into a carotid hold after Roedema said that McClain had reached for the officer’s gun. Paramedics injected McClain with ketamine and he went into cardiac arrest during the ambulance ride to a hospital. He died on Aug. 30 after he was removed from life support.

Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault in October. Rosenblatt, who was fired from the Aurora Police Department before he was indicted, was acquitted of criminal charges during the same trial.

A jury found Woodyard not guilty of criminal charges on Nov. 6, and this week he returned to work at the police department, where he is going through a mandatory reintegration process.

During those trials, the officers’ defense attorneys directed blame toward the paramedics for using ketamine. Now, those paramedics will use the officers’ actions to boost their defense.

Michael Lowe, the lawyer for Cichuniec, told jurors they will repeatedly see the body camera footage from that night, and he asked them to pay attention to the details and to ask themselves about what is not seen on video.

When the paramedics arrived on scene in an Aurora Fire Rescue engine they could not park close to where McClain was being held because police cars were clogging the street. They had to walk more than a block and then waited nearly 11 minutes for an ambulance to arrive, Lowe said.

At the scene, Cichuniec had safety and administrative control while Cooper was in charge of the medical response, Lowe said. They had distinct roles from each other and from the police.

Cooper was the paramedic who asked for ketamine from the ambulance and video showed him injecting McClain in the neck while police officers held McClain down. Cooper then told others to wait a minute to make sure McClain calmed down before police lifted him onto a stretcher.

Lowe showed videos and played audio clips that he said were evidence that Cichuniec and Cooper were discussing treatment and following their roles at the scene. Jurors must consider what the two men knew within minutes of arriving and what their training and protocol said they should do.

“This case is not about whether mistakes were made,” Lowe said. “This case is not about whether protocols were missed. This is a case is about whether, when trying to help Mr. McClain, these two gentlemen committed a crime. They did not.”

“They overdosed Elijah”

But Stevenson, during her presentation, said the two paramedics failed McClain.

They did not conduct a proper assessment of his condition, including checking his vital signs. They did not try to speak to him. They did not touch him until Cooper injected the ketamine, Stevenson said.

“At every single step they acted with total disregard for Elijah McClain as their patient,” she said.

McClain never needed ketamine, Stevenson said, as she showed jurors the guidance Aurora paramedics are given to determine whether someone is experiencing excited delirium, a condition that describes someone exhibiting extreme agitation to the point where they are a danger to themselves and others.

Video shows McClain lying mostly still and occasionally moaning when he is injected, not combative like someone with excited delirium, Stevenson said.

“They overdosed Elijah with a sedative he did not need,” she said. “They left him completely vulnerable and stood there and watched him die. It was cruel.”

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Officers arrested the boy on charges of manslaughter and juvenile possession of a gun, Aurora police spokesperson Joe Moylan said Wednesday in an email.

Police responded about 10:20 p.m. Saturday to a report of a shooting in the 1000 block of Norfolk Street, where they found the boy had accidentally shot the girl during a family party.

Officers performed life-saving measures until medical personnel took her to a hospital, but she died while there, Moylan said.

The boy remained at the scene before police arrested him, Moylan said.

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Nathan Woodyard, one of three police officers indicted in connection with the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, returned to work at the Aurora Police Department and will receive more than $212,546 in back pay after he was acquitted earlier this month of all charges.

Woodyard asked to be reintegrated into the police department, which is allowed under the city charter, and he is undergoing training on policies and practices that have changed since he was suspended without pay in September 2021, Aurora spokesman Ryan Luby wrote in an email.

Woodyard, for now, is not wearing a uniform, will not have public contact and will not be allowed to enforce laws until he has finished the reintegration process, Luby said.

“The length of a reintegration period varies depending on the employee, the length of their extended absence and any other circumstances that may arise before or during that process,” Luby wrote. “Consequently, Mr. Woodyard would need to undergo reintegration for a period of time as numerous policies and practices at the Aurora Police Department have changed since he was placed on administrative leave without pay.”

Once Woodyard has completed reintegration he will be eligible for reassignment to a rank and duty position at the Chief Art Acevedo’s discretion. Woodyard was a patrol officer prior to his suspension.

Acevedo told Sentinel Colorado that it was “premature” to discuss any future assignment for Woodyard within the department. “I don’t think it’ll happen while I’m here,” he said. “He won’t be on patrol.”

Woodyard was on patrol on the night of Aug. 24, 2019, when someone called police to report McClain as a suspicious person. Woodyard was the first officer to make contact with McClain, who was walking home from a convenience store after buying iced tea.

Woodyard took McClain to the ground within eight seconds of getting out of his car and did not introduce himself or explain why he was stopping McClain. Two other officers, Randy Roedema and Jason Rosenblatt, joined Woodyard in tackling McClain and violently restraining him.

Woodyard used a carotid neck hold on McClain after Roedema claimed the 23-year-old was reaching for an officer’s gun.

Roedema and Rosenblatt went to trial in October, with jurors delivering a split verdict. Roedema was convicted of criminally negligent homicide and third-degree assault. Rosenblatt was found not guilty on all charges.

Roedema has not been sentenced. Rosenblatt was fired from the police department in July 2020 over photos of police officers mocking the carotid hold used on McClain. He has sued the city over his termination.

At Woodyard’s trial, prosecutors argued that the officer needlessly escalated the situation as they tried to convince a jury to convict him of manslaughter.

Woodyard, who testified in his own defense, said he put McClain in the neck hold because he feared for his life after he heard McClain say, “I intend to take my power back,” and another officer say, “He just grabbed your gun, dude.”

Prosecutors refuted that McClain ever tried to grab an officer’s gun, and that move cannot be seen in body camera footage played in court.

Defense attorneys also argued that McClain died because paramedics injected him with a lethal dose of the sedative ketamine to calm him down.

Opening statements in the trial for the two paramedics who administered the ketamine are scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m. Wednesday at the Adams County courthouse.

The graphic body camera footage of officers restraining McClain led to police protests in 2020, following the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

During those protests, people often repeated McClain’s final words: “I can’t breathe,” and “My name is Elijah McClain. I’m just different.”

McClain died on Aug. 30, 2019, after he was taken off life support. His parents received $15 million from Aurora to settle a lawsuit over his death.

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Deven Jay Dobbins, 30, was arrested on Oct. 28 in Brookfield, Missouri on suspicion of second-degree murder in the fatal stabbings of 58-year-old Otto Washington and 44-year-old Desmond Thomas.

The stabbing occurred in the 11200 and 11300 blocks of East Colfax Avenue at approximately 8 p.m. on Oct. 16 when people passing by told patrol officers there was a man lying in the street nearby.

Additional passersby told officers about the second victim, who was down the street. The victims, later identified as Washington and Thomas, were transported to the hospital, where they died from their injuries.

Detectives identified Dobbins as a suspect and obtained a nationwide warrant for his arrest, Aurora police said in a news release Tuesday.

The department’s fugitive unit found he was in Brookfield, Missouri and contacted local law enforcement for help with a search. The city of 4,000 people is approximately 110 miles northeast of Kansas City.

Brookfield police, Linn County deputies and Missouri state troopers searched for Dobbins, who was located and arrested on Oct. 28.

Dobbins was extradited to Colorado on Nov. 18 and booked into the Arapahoe County Jail on two counts of second-degree murder.

There are no additional suspects in the case, according to Aurora police.

Dobbins was previously arrested on suspicion of three counts of assault and child abuse in October 2022 and pleaded guilty to third-degree assault in Jefferson County District Court in August.

He was sentenced to 91 days in jail and received 91 days of credit for time served, according to court records.

Dobbins is also suspected of second-degree assault in an Oct. 5 incident, according to court records. A warrant for his arrest in that case was issued on Oct. 19.

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