Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said the city doesn’t need the National Guard or federal enforcement to handle protests and he will oppose it.

“We’ve had protests almost every single week since Trump became president,” Johnston told 9News reporter Marc Sallinger in an interview. “We’ve had protests almost every week for the last two years, and every one of them has been peaceful. This is the first time we’ve had any arrests in, maybe more than a year, at one of these types of events – and that’s because there were a very small number of people who were hostile and were violent.”

On Tuesday night, 18 people were arrested in connection with local protests over the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

“We do not need a National Guard,” he said. “We don’t need any federal support; we don’t need Marines, and there’s not gonna be behavior on our streets that’s going to show that there’s a need for that. We will continue to make the case there is no need for federal intervention, and we will oppose it if they try to bring it.”

In a statement released Wednesday morning, the Denver Police Department said that, as demonstrators marched along streets and blocked roadways, officers had to divert vehicular traffic as a safety precaution.

At times, officers deployed smoke and pepper balls to disperse crowds blocking roadways or deny their access to areas.

Police said two people were arrested on suspicion of second-degree assault on a peace officer and a third for second-degree assault.

“You’re making a statement by assaulting our (police) officers,” Johnston said. “You’re just making the city less safe; we’re not going to tolerate that, and we’ll step in on it.”

He added: “We want folks to come and protest peacefully, but they should make sure the folks that come with them also are here to protest peacefully, because you’ve damaged the movement when you start committing crimes and damaging property.”

Johnston has been on the Trump administration’s radar since before the president took office in January over the city’s refusal to arrest individuals based on immigration status alone.

In March, he was summoned before the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that was investigating “sanctuary” jurisdictions.

At one point during the hearing, he was threatened with jail.

Some say the recent demonstrations against deportation actions in Los Angeles could put a spotlight on Denver.

However, Johnston reiterated his belief that Denver has done well in keeping its most recent protests peaceful and that “there’s no reason to invite a new battle with the president” in a city that doesn’t have a crisis.

Johnston argued that while the Trump administration is “looking for every opportunity to make this the news story in every city in America,” it’s not “good” for migrants and businesses.

When asked about how Denver would respond to the president deploying federal forces or the National Guard, Johnston said the key is for the city not to reach that stage.

“What we know is we can protest peacefully, people can be heard, and we can enforce the rule of law,” he said. “We can have both the First Amendment and public safety, and this is why, I think, last night also proved Denver doesn’t need any help to manage this problem.”

Johnston said the city would respond appropriately and balance the right amount of force based on the behavior of demonstrators.

To date, the City of Denver has paid out close to $15 million in settlement claims stemming from police actions during the George Floyd protests in the summer of 2020.

Plaintiffs’ claims range from free speech violation to injuries resulting from excessive force, less-than-lethal force such as rubber bullets, tear gas, pepper spray, and pepper balls, according to court documents.

The Denver City Council agreed on Monday to pay $399,000 to settle a police misconduct case, bringing the city’s total for such settlements for 2025 to $5.1 million.

Council members unanimously approved five separate resolutions relating to a U.S. District Court case where a group of activists, journalists and YouTubers alleged they were the victims of police violence while filming and documenting police activity during the George Floyd protests in 2020.

Johnston added that he has “100% confidence in the Denver Police Department.”

“If people are violent and they’re damaging someone’s small business, we’re gonna arrest you,” he said. “If you are assaulting an officer, we’re gonna arrest you. If you’re trying to light cars on fire, we’re gonna arrest you.”

Denver Gazette news partner 9News contributed to this story. To read more, click here. 

A series of limited liability corporations have purchased at least 13 parcels of land around a potential future Broncos stadium site in Denver since last summer and paid more than $150 million combined to do so.

The transactions, first reported by BusinessDen and later confirmed by The Denver Post, started in August 2024 and have continued through this spring. The plots surround the Burham Yard railyard, a state-owned, 58-acre property in Lincoln Park that is for sale and has many of the hallmarks of a potential stadium site.

The $tadium Game: Inside the lucrative world of Colorado’s pro sports stadiums

At least nine of the LLCs that purchased the properties were created in 2023, and none of the sales were connected to a loan, a review of public documents revealed.

Citing an unnamed source familiar with the real estate deals, BusinessDen reported that at least 10 of the LLCs have ties to the Broncos’ Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group. The Post has not independently verified that connection.

The Broncos declined to comment on specific real estate transactions around Burnham Yard or elsewhere.

“As we’ve previously shared, we are involved in a comprehensive process regarding the future of our stadium,” a Broncos spokesman told The Post. “No determinations have been made as we continue to evaluate several options in and around the Denver metro area.”

Real estate records reveal that these LLCs are not just random corporations with no connective tissue.

The Post found that in at least nine of the transactions — including six plots that sold for a combined $22 million all within two blocks directly north of Burnham Yard — the sale was handled on the buyer’s side by Lea Ann Fowler, a real estate attorney at Hogan Lovells. Fowler previously worked with Broncos general counsel Tim Aragon at the same firm, where he was the managing partner of its Denver office before leaving in 2022 to work for the Walton-Penner Family Ownership Group.

Each of those six purchases was made between August 2024 and January using a variety of LLCs, including Villard LLC, Compass Peak Holdings LLC, Summitt 55 Company LLC and 1396 Canyon Lane LLC.

Just south of the rail yard, Tim Armitage sold his property at 657 North Osage St. in October.

The price — $2.7 million — felt like an above-market deal for the 9,361 square-foot warehouse he owned for five years.

As for the buyer? He has no idea.

“Never met them; never knew a thing about it,” Armitage told The Post on Wednesday. “I didn’t care; it didn’t matter to me. They had the money and I was selling it.”

Another property owner reached by The Denver Post said they couldn’t comment because language included in the contract prohibits talking about the sale.

All of these smaller parcels are set around the 58-acre Burnham Yard, which the Colorado Department of Transportation owns and is currently in the process of selling. It says it intends to do so by next spring.

“The (CTIO) is still conducting due diligence on the most beneficial uses and site preparation to eventually sell the property,” CDOT communications director and special adviser to the executive director Matt Inzeo told The Post on Wednesday.

Burnham Yard is considered a possible site for a new Broncos stadium should they ultimately decide to move from Empower Field at Mile High.

“In terms of the vein of keeping it in urban Denver or close to downtown … I would put a bet that’s where it happens,” Chris Phenecie, a senior vice president at the commercial real estate firm CBRE, told The Post recently.

Several consultants agreed last year that Burnham Yard fits the bill for the type of parcel that works for a professional sports stadium, with one exception.

The yard itself is too small.

For a stadium and an adjacent entertainment district of some kind, anybody wanting to build a stadium there would need to acquire additional land surrounding it.

That can be an expensive proposition, but even working through purchasing multiple plots from various buyers over a long period of time can be worthwhile.

“When you’re talking about a $2 billion venue, land cost does become a drop in the bucket unless you’re really acquiring a prime site,” Erin Talkington, the managing director of RCLCO, a real estate advisory firm whose work includes consulting for sports ownership groups and municipalities on major development projects, told The Post in 2024. “It is one of the reasons why you often see new venues go to areas that have always been somewhat underutilized or in need of reinvestment.”

Recent sales made near Burnham Yard late last year and early this year were averaging close to $300 per square foot of built space. By contrast, the list prices per square foot for four industrial properties in other parts of central Denver that are being marketed averaged closer to $155 a square foot, or about half. That comparison doesn’t account for differences in the amount of land involved in each deal.

Two of the biggest parcels are Denver Water’s 36-acre campus to the west and SRM Concrete, which is wedged between Denver Water and the yard on the north end. Denver Water and Burnham Yard extend south to and beyond the 8th Avenue bridge.

While those plots have not sold recently, several others in the area have. The total purchase price for 13 recent sales around Burnham, according to public records reviewed by The Post and BusinessDen reporting: Nearly $153 million.

Acquiring land like this can serve multiple purposes for a professional sports franchise. It can set a club up to build and develop or it can be used to serve as leverage while negotiating with a municipality.

Once a site is finalized, ownership groups are interested in using a stadium as an anchor to any number of kinds of entertainment districts. Such projects are in various states of progress up and down the Interstate 25 corridor from Burnham Yard, with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment set to develop around Ball Arena and the new NWSL franchise coming to Denver setting out to develop Santa Fe Yards to the south.

“Most of the deals that we’ve worked on, incoming owners, their primary question is around venue and the potential upside around the surrounding area,” Edwin Draughan, a director and partner at Park Lane, a sports-focused investment bank, told The Post in 2024. “… There’s only so much additional revenue you can get from the team. But there’s a layer of influence and there’s also a level of just real estate ownership.”

The Broncos’ current lease with the Metropolitan Football Stadium District runs through the 2030 season, though the club has the ability to extend it for five years if needed. Still, the 2030 date does put the team in a position where it has some time and flexibility.

Stadium projects around the NFL tend to take about four years between the time they’re first announced and when the stadium is built and ready for use. That same timeline would put the Broncos within about a year of needing to have a project site approved and announced if they do indeed decide to build new.

Team president Damani Leech said earlier this spring that the club had “a healthy amount of pressure” to move forward in their decision-making process.

“We are not holding ourselves to that to say we absolutely have to have something by that year,” he said. “The components of what happens, though, are real and important. Stadiums typically take about 48 months to build from a construction standpoint. You think about what has to happen from a permitting standpoint and all those things. We’re starting to build out those calendars to get a better understanding of, once you do decide what to do, how long it’s going to take.”

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Originally Published: June 11, 2025 at 8:36 PM MDT

DENVER — Community organizer Brian Loma remembers wearing his homemade “PRESS” helmet during the summer of 2020, when crowds filled downtown Denver streets to protest police brutality after the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Those protests turned violent and led to several lawsuits and claims of more police brutality. Loma was involved in one of those lawsuits.

“I’m filming,” he recalled, describing the situation during one of the protests. “I have a camera. I don’t have a rock. I’m not here to damage anything. I’m filming.”

Loma alleges that at one point during a protest, he was burning sage and praying when he was attacked by Denver police.

“I started getting shot with pepper balls,” he said. “There wasn’t mass crowds. There wasn’t violent lines of people throwing water bottles or rocks or anything. It wasn’t with a massive group. I was there and I was praying.”

That account is part of a lawsuit settled by the City of Denver this week. Loma received a $135,000 payout to settle his claims from that night.

“You know, I’m not out there filming these events, participating, because I want a payout,” he told Denver7 Tuesday. “That’s not the point. The point is to have accountability, be the eyes and ears [of the public].”

Denver7 has followed the settlements between the City of Denver and protesters. Read our previous coverage below:

In total, the City of Denver has paid out more than $18 million in settlements related to the 2020 protests. Denver City Councilwoman Shontel Lewis said the city needs to be more accountable, especially as it faces a $250 million budget shortfall.

“When we’re looking at an ask to furlough, to lay folks off, but we’re also paying out settlements and large sums, we have to ask ourselves — because we talk about this all the time — if budgets are moral documents, what does that say about our morality?” Lewis said on Tuesday.

Lewis believes a less punitive culture within the Denver Police Department, or better alternatives to address community needs, would mean fewer of these claims and lawsuits.

“There are a number of things that you can do where you could have less reliance on the police and more reliance on community organizations and community and solutions that are embedded in [and] deeply rooted in community care,” she said. “But I don’t think we do that.”

Former Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen led the department during the 2020 protests. Denver7 Investigates asked him about the department’s actions leading to millions in payouts.

“A lot of these cases have gone on,” Pazen said. “They’ve been appealed. The city has won several of these cases, as well, which often doesn’t get talked about as much as it should.”

• Hear more from former Chief Pazen in the video player below

Denver7 Investigates talks with former Denver Police Chief Paul Pazen ahead of ICE Out! protest

Pazen said it’s often agitators in the crowd that spark violence.

“Working with the community is the way to address these types of situations, but this is not a one-way street,” he said. “If you have organizers of peaceful protests that step up and get rid of agitators, you will have a peaceful, successful protest. When people start to cause damage, destruction, get involved in violence, then a police department has to respond. That is their duty in order to stop the violence.”

Denver PD declined to comment on the settlement payouts, but did respond to Denver7’s question about how the department has changed its crowd control policies since 2020. The department provided the following examples, but did not include further details:

• The elimination the use of 40 mm less lethal equipment for purposes of crowd control
• Modified the way officers are permitted to use pepper balls for purposes of crowd management
• Less lethal equipment training enhanced to help ensure appropriate use in crowd control settings and understanding of commands
• All officers have received additional training on crowd control response and rapid deployment vehicle tactics

After five years, Loma calls the wait for change “painstaking.”

“Reform does happen slowly, but sometimes it feels like we take two steps forward and take one step back,” he said. “Maybe there is reform happening, right? Maybe it does happen, but it’s a long, slow, arduous process.”