Denver cops Ricky Nixon and Kevin Devine fired for 2009 Denver Diner billy-clubbing, macing

Big pic below.

Manager of Safety Charley Garcia is singlehandedly making up for years of inaction regarding alleged excessive force cases.

Just weeks after finally firing Officers Devin Sparks and Randy Muir in the Michael DeHerrera beating, he's sacked another pair of cops, Ricky Nixon and Kevin Devine, over a July 2009 incident at the Denver Diner.

CBS4 reports that on the night of July 12, 2009, Nixon and Devine billy-clubbed several unnamed women to the ground outside the restaurant. And that's not all. A HALO security camera shows a woman being maced in the face by one officer even though she's on her knees and in the control of another cop. No wonder people began to gather nearby, and they got an eyeful -- of mace sprayed by the same officer who'd spritzed the stuff at an already subdued suspect a moment earlier.

CBS4

An image from the HALO camera that captured the Denver Diner incident.

Well over a year later, Denver Police Chief Gerald Whitman, marked for replacement by several mayoral candidates, recommended suspensions of thirty days and fourteen days for Nixon and Devine, respectively.

Instead, Garcia gave them the heave-ho.

Was Garcia influenced by Nixon's past track record? Joel Warner reported in January that an officer of the same name was among a trio of cops who beat Alex Landau bloody in January 2009. And a Ricky Nixon was also involved in a fatal 2006 shooting.

Same guy? We're hoping to find out. In the meantime, both Nixon and Devine have the right to appeal their canning, and Nick Rogers, president of the Denver Police Protective Association, tells CBS4 they did nothing wrong.

Clearly, Garcia disagreed.

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