Christopher Booker, who drove into a group of four Denver police officers during a student protest in December, seriously injuring one of them, was arrested Wednesday on four felony charges in the incident.
Booker, 42, is being held on suspicion of first-degree assault, vehicular assault, forgery and attempt to influence a public servant. Witnesses say Booker had a “medical condition” — what appeared to be a seizure — when he struck the officers.
Mitch Morrissey, Denver’ s district attorney, said the arrest stems from medical documents showing Booker had a history of seizures but did not disclose his condition when applying nine times for driver’s licenses between 2006 and 2015.
He said his office plans to file 20 formal counts against Booker.
“It is our position that he operated a motor vehicle knowing that he suffered from a medical condition that made him unsafe to drive and therefore showing universal malice,” Morrissey said at a news conference.
Morrissey says the investigation took as long as it did because of an “extensive review of the medical records” and that officials combed through “every medical record that we could get to make this filing correct.” Booker’s Division of Motor Vehicle records also were examined.
Booker is being held at Denver’s downtown detention center in lieu of $50,000 bail, jail records show.
“There is no evidence that tells me this was an intentional act,” said Sgt. Michael Farr, of the department’s traffic investigations unit, who oversaw the case.
Police said in an arrest affidavit that Booker would not have been able to obtain a driver’s license had he been truthful in his applications.
“I believe that the charges are absolutely what we can prove and they are the highest charges that we can prove,” Farr said.
The bicycle officers whom Booker hit were monitoring student protesters from East High School on Dec. 3 along East Colfax Avenue near Williams Street. The collision happened during a period of student activism in the city over police actions across the country against unarmed black men.
The collision left Officer John Adsit in critical care for a month, during which he underwent 11 surgeries to repair crushed ribs, a punctured lung, a severed artery in his leg, a broken femur and a cracked pelvis. The officer’s spleen was removed, and he battled internal bleeding, pneumonia, vision loss, fever and infection.
Adsit, a nine-year veteran of the department, was the only one of the four officers to be injured seriously in the collision. He was dragged for more than a dozen yards under the black Mercedes that Booker was driving.
Adsit was released from the hospital last month.
One student who witnessed the crash told The Denver Post that day he saw Booker convulsing in his car after striking the officers.
Jesse Paul: 303-954-1733, jpaul@denverpost.com or twitter.com/JesseAPaul
