By Shelly Bradbury
The Denver Post
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PARKER, Colo. — A Douglas County jury awarded $24 million to a New Jersey man Monday after finding a Parker police detective pursued a false criminal case against the man in one of the largest civil rights verdicts in state history.
Robert Dial, 62, won $22 million in economic damages and another $2 million for pain and suffering after he sued former Parker Police Department Detective Shannon Brukbacher over his 2022 arrest on felony charges of tampering with evidence, his attorneys David Maxted and Kathryn Stimson said Tuesday.
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The criminal charges were dismissed five months after Dial’s arrest, but not before he lost his job and reputation, the attorneys said. They sued Brukbacher in 2024 and the jury delivered a verdict late Monday after a five-day trial in Douglas County District Court.
“This is vindication for him,” Maxted said of Dial. “This basically completely clears him and indicates she maliciously prosecuted him and is liable for what happened.”
Brukbacher’s attorneys did not return requests for comment Tuesday. A spokesman for the Parker Police Department did not return a request for comment. Andy Anderson, communications manager for the town, said in a statement that the town is reviewing the case and considering whether to appeal.
“While the Town is disappointed with the verdict, we respect the judicial process,” Anderson said in the statement. “However, we believe the evidence presented in the case warranted a different outcome.”
Jurors considered Dial’s lost earnings as an investment manager to reach the $24 million mark, Maxted noted.
“The Town of Parker had a city attorney there throughout the trial,” he said. “So they have known this is a big problem and there has just been a refusal to take accountability. So we had to have a jury trial. And a jury did what juries do: They found her accountable.”
The case began on Feb. 15, 2022, when Dial’s son, Cameron Dial , got into a confrontation with his roommates at the Stone Canyon apartments on Cottonwood Drive. Cameron Dial shot both roommates, killing one man and wounding a woman.
Cameron Dial lives with a “significant learning disability,” and often relies on Robert Dial for help with daily living, according to the lawsuit. He called his father in a panic and confessed to the shooting immediately after the attack. Robert Dial was in New Jersey at the time, but told his son to call for help. Robert Dial also said he’d hire an attorney for his son and went on to do so.
Robert Dial spoke with Brukbacher later that day and told the detective he’d hired an attorney. Dial’s son declined to speak with police until he first spoke with his attorney. Brukbacher became irritated by the development and continued to try to get information from Robert Dial about the incident, urging him to “be an adult,” the father’s attorneys claimed in the lawsuit.
The woman who was shot later told the police detective that Robert Dial instructed his son to hide the gun after the shooting. The woman told the detective that Cameron Dial might have hidden the gun in a closet or in the laundry room, and that Cameron cut holes in the walls of the apartment to hide things in what Robert Dial’s attorneys said was a “bizarre and untrue monologue.”
The gun was not hidden when police officers arrived at the scene. They immediately found the weapon, which was in plain view in the hand of the slain man, according to the lawsuit. The woman made a number of demonstrably false statements about the attack and had a history of being unreliable to the point that Brukbacher should have known she was not a credible witness, Dial’s attorneys alleged.
Brukbacher nevertheless authored a misleading and false affidavit charging Robert Dial with two felony counts of tampering with evidence based on the woman’s claim and arrested Robert Dial, according to the complaint. In the affidavit, Brukbacher said the woman had a “very clear memory of what happened,” although the woman herself described being “super in and out of it” during the shooting.
Jurors on Monday found Brukbacher liable for a false arrest and for malicious prosecution, Maxted said. Court records reflecting the verdict were not immediately available Tuesday.
Cameron Dial, now 32, was charged with first-degree murder. He took the case to trial and the jury could not reach a verdict, Maxted said. Court records show the son later pleaded guilty to the lesser charges of reckless manslaughter and attempted reckless manslaughter.
During Cameron Dial’s jury trial, the judge paused the proceedings and excused the jury while Brukbacher was on the stand in order to admonish the detective to testify truthfully, according to the lawsuit.
Brukbacher retired from the Parker Police Department in 2024 after spending more than two decades on the job, the agency said in a Facebook post. She remains a certified police officer but is unemployed, according to records kept by the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board.
The 23rd Judicial District Attorney’s office has begun the process of making credibility notifications about Brukbacher in cases in which she is endorsed as a witness in the wake of the civil verdict, spokesman Tom Mustin said in a statement Tuesday.
The verdict should put all Colorado police departments on notice, Stimson said.
“All the time across the country people are arrested for crimes they didn’t commit and prosecuted,” she said. “Their lives and careers are destroyed and prosecutors and police don’t care. They should make sure that there is probable cause every time they bring a case.”
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