Despite multiple witnesses telling police that Stephan Long had acted in self-defense when he shot and killed two white assailants who had attacked him during a road rage altercation, Denver prosecutors charged the Black man with two counts of first-degree murder.
Long ended up spending four months in jail and an additional 10 months on house arrest with an ankle monitor before prosecutors dismissed the charges for “insufficient evidence.”
Last week, Long filed a lawsuit against the two Denver police officers who arrested him and labeled him the suspect, as well as the city and county of Denver, who followed through on the prosecution, accusing them of violating his Fourth and 14th Amendment rights, selective prosecution, and unlawful arrest.
The lawsuit claims Long would never have been charged had he been white and the assailants Black, listing an example from a previous unrelated case where a white man chased down a Black boy who had stolen his car and shot him to death, despite being told to back off the chase by a 911 dispatcher…