
DENVER — A former Colorado police officer shown on body camera video roughly arresting a 73-year-old woman with dementia and later seen joking about it with colleagues was sentenced Thursday to five years in prison.
Austin Hopp arrested Karen Garner in 2020 after she left a store without paying for about $14 worth of items in Loveland, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) north of Denver. Police body camera video shows that after she turned away from him, he grabbed her arm and pushed her to the ground, still holding the wildflowers she had been picking as she walked through a field.