Photo Courtesy of Black Enterprise
Officer Dewayne Rodgers’ employment with the Denver Police Department was terminated because he failed to render adequate aid to JaLonte Jones, an eighteen-year-old shooting victim who subsequently died of his wounds.
On Sept. 7, 2020, Rodgers responded to a call at an apartment complex in the area. He was directed to JaLonte Jones, who was lying on the ground with a gunshot wound.
According to the Daily Mail, Rodgers said that the victim was bleeding so profusely that he couldn’t determine exactly where he had been shot. The 16-year veteran immediately called an ambulance to the scene, but claimed that he made no attempts to administer first aid because he didn’t want to aggravate Jones’ injury.
Rodgers reported that he usually carries a tourniquet but did not have one with him on the night of the incident. According to disciplinary records, he also noted that he “did not have latex gloves and does not typically carry latex gloves but would have had no problem placing his hands on the victim without latex gloves.”
The DPD investigation determined that Rodgers repeatedly asked Jones what his name was and whether Jones knew who had shot him.
Jones responded, sporadically, by declaring, “I’m dying.”
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The DPD’s departmental order of disciplinary action, issued by Mary Dulacki, the Denver Department of Public Safety’s deputy executive director, portrays Rodgers as lacking empathy. A key passage contends that the officer’s “callous lack of humanity…is best exemplified by his response to the victim saying, ‘Oh, my God. Help me.’”
After hearing this plea, Rodgers reportedly asked: “Do you live in this complex?”
In a departmental order of disciplinary action, the police department found “Officer Rodgers made no attempt to render aid such as applying pressure to the area of the wound, which he expressed was a suitable alternative means of triaging a gunshot wound in the absence of a tourniquet. Officer Rodgers’ claim that he was concerned about aggravating the injury cannot excuse the lack of care he demonstrated since the foreseeable outcome of failing to render aid was death, which significantly outweighs any concern of aggravating an injury.”