Video: Broomfield Police arrest five protesters at FlatIron Crossing American Indian flash mob
Sergeant Rick Kempsell, a public information officer with the Broomfield Police Department, tells us that ultimately two male adults, two female adults and one female minor were arrested on the scene.
"They were gathering and obstructing the movement of the people inside by the grand staircase of the mall," he says. "They had been asked to leave by mall security. They didn't comply. Mall security asked us to direct them to leave and we ordered them to leave.... All of them, with the exception of these five, did." 
Sam Levin Monday's protest inside the building where the Canadian Consulate is located.
He says that there were around seventy participants and that most left while the few who refused ultimately faced trespassing charges.
They have court dates scheduled for February 20. The four adults were handcuffed and taken to a detention center, he says, and the minor, whom McLean says is 17 years old, was taken to a substation in the mall to be released to a parent. They were all eventually released with summons. Kempsell says that violations of municipal ordinances can carry a fine up to a thousand dollars or jail time up to a year -- a rare maximum.
He explains that a mall is open to the public, but is still private property.
"So we can limit people coming in...[if] they are creating some kind of issue like blocking," he says. "Mall security started getting calls from store owners saying they were blocking access...to stores."
He says that they have freedom of speech to protest, but have to disburse if mall security asks them to do so.
"We are always dismayed...when mall authorities or police could've been more civil," says Glenn Morris, an associate professor at the University of Colorado Denver and a member of the Leadership Council of the American Indian Movement of Colorado.
Morris, who we spoke to on Monday but was not at the protest in Broomfield, says that this is the first time there have been multiple arrests in the Idle No More movement, which began in November. 
Sam Levin Glenn Morris on Monday.
"This is a worldwide movement," says McLean. "I just want outside people to know that we weren't out of line. We weren't trespassing. Everything was done in good spirits."
More from our Colorado Crimes archive: "Boulder police apologize for "confusion" over a bull elk shot by an officer"
Follow Sam Levin on Twitter at @SamTLevin. E-mail the author at Sam.Levin@Westword.com.
Email to Friend
Write to Editor
Print Article
