How long does it take for someone to actually admit they screwed up?

If you are the City and County of Denver, it apparently takes at least a year. And counting . . .

Sunday will mark the one-year anniversary of Emily Rice's death. She is the 24-year-old woman who died an agonizing death in City Jail following a horrific car crash in south Denver last Feb. 18, after Denver Health officials quickly shuttled her off to police, who clearly ignored her and the pleas from her fellow inmates that she was dying.

In honesty, it would take you and me at least a year to come up with even a half-believable story had this woman, the details of her death quite so evident, been in our care and custody.

And we would be already serving out the first year of our long jail sentence.

You remember Emily.

She was, by all accounts, the sweetest thing, a server at Herman's Hideaway on South Broadway, who now is known to have had a couple of drinks after her normal late-night shift, who had refused to drive and shared a ride home in a taxi with a co-worker.

She'd talked on the telephone shortly after arriving home with her mother and with her boyfriend, text-messaged others.

Hours later, around 6:45 that next morning, accounts say she climbed into her mother's car to fetch a pack of cigarettes at a nearby Conoco station.

Idling next to the station at East Hampden Avenue and South Elm Street, she let one car pass before making her turn. The car following it smashed into and demolished her mom's vehicle.

Officers who responded took Emily Rice to Denver Health Medical Center for treatment of her injuries, putting a hold on her for driving under the influence and assorted other charges.

She was checked and soon was released back to police and taken to jail.

There she complained of not being able to breathe or feel her feet. There, she refused the food offered to her, where at one point she allegedly was told to "sleep it off," to "stop the drama," where she passed out, where inmates in the cell with her finally pleaded for deputies to come see about the woman.

Emily Rice, her liver and her spleen lacerated in the awful crash, bled to death on the jailhouse floor.

Denver city officials as late as last October said a finding on the cause of Emily Rice's death would not be made until the conclusion of an internal probe by the Denver Sheriff's Department, which runs the jail, and a criminal investigation by Denver police.

Emily Rice is not JonBenet Ramsey.

What is taking so long?

I was unable to contact Al LaCabe, Denver manager of safety, Thursday afternoon. I tried.

Mari Newman, a Denver lawyer representing the Rice family, said neither she nor the woman's parents have heard anything from the city.

"(The city) has not, to our knowledge, taken the opportunity to dig deeply enough so such an awful, tragic death does not happen again. We are really dissatisfied with the city's response."

The woman's family, through Newman's office, late last year filed a notice of intent with the city to sue for $10 million. No lawsuit has yet been filed.

"We are working with the city and Denver Health to do the right thing," she said, "to look at policy and staffing at the jail so such a senseless death never has to happen again."

Nothing. That's what Sue Garber, Emily's mother, said when asked if she has heard anything from the city.

"I cannot possibly imagine why it has taken this long to complete the investigation," she said. "There was video of everything that happened. It should be cut and dried.

"Instead, it is like Emily was nothing, that no one deserves an explanation of why she died, or the way she died."

Sue Garber has organized a vigil this Sunday for Emily that will track her movements a year ago.

The family will start at 7 a.m. at the Denver Health emergency room where Emily first was taken, followed at 10 a.m. at City Jail "where they found her dead on the floor," Sue Garber said.

The family will then gather a day later, at 6 a.m. Monday, in front of the Denver Health emergency room where Emily finally was pronounced dead.

"What happened to Emily needs to be known," Sue Garber said. "It could just as easily have been someone else's child. This has to stop. We have to fix what has been so horribly broken.

"No, I can't bring Emily back," she said, explaining the reasons for the vigil, "but maybe I can keep the next child from dying the same way Emily did."

Bill Johnson's column appears Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Call him at 303-954-2763 or e-mail him at johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com.

Back to Top