7 AUGUST 15-21, 2024 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | Until a few years ago, Anita Springsteen never gave much thought to the idea that medication could also be a weapon. Not until the day it happened before her eyes, to someone close to her. On that life-changing morning — January 28, 2020, a Tuesday — Springsteen was at her home with her boyfriend, Jeremiah Axtell. An attorney and newly elected member of Lake- wood’s city council, Springsteen was known for pushing growth caps and challenging well-connected development interests. She was also embroiled in a long-running dispute with the operators of a memory-care center across the street from her house over several matters, from alleged elder abuse to improper disposal of human waste. That morning, Axtell had a heated con- versation with an employee of the center about a soiled adult diaper in the street. Someone from the center called 911, claim- ing that Axtell had a knife. When Lakewood police offi cers arrived, Axtell stepped into the street to greet them, removing his jacket and lifting his shirt to demonstrate that he was unarmed. That didn’t deter one offi cer from pointing her taser at him. Fearful of what might happen next, Springsteen began recording the incident on her phone. Axtell, who would later admit to having a couple of drinks that morning, sat down in Springsteen’s driveway. He was soon surrounded by police and handcuffed. The cell-phone video shows him speaking calmly to the offi cers, promising to cooperate, then yelping with pain when they pull on his arms or the handcuffs. He showers them with curses and expresses frustration that he’s the one being arrested. “I didn’t do nothing wrong,” he fumes. The frustration spikes after an emer- gency medical team from West Metro Fire Rescue arrives on the scene. A paramedic’s rote questions about whether he is on drugs and his grasp on reality draws an emphatic response. “Talk to me like a real person,” Axtell insists. “Goddamn it, you’re not even listening to me.” But however agitated Axtell might have been, he offered no physical resistance to the responders as the encounter dragged on. The video shows him standing up and walking placidly under escort toward a patrol car, promising to comply “100 percent.” That scene is in stark contradiction to the paramedic’s version. According to his report, Axtell “became combative and verbally ag- gressive” and yelled “random things that didn’t make sense” between fi ts of laughter. Although the patient was handcuffed and “oriented to person, place, time, and event,” the paramedic deemed him “uncontrol- lable…It was determined patient was in excited delirium.” Because of that dubious diagnosis, Axtell was placed not in a patrol car, but on a gurney. He was strapped down and shot up with 450 milligrams of ketamine, a powerful sedative, then taken by ambulance to a hospital, then jail — even though the charges against him (which ranged from menacing to making an “offensive gesture”) were fl imsy and soon dismissed. On the video, Springsteen can be heard expressing astonishment that Axtell was being sedated. Looking back on the situation now, she expresses regret that she didn’t protest more vigorously — but she also didn’t want to be accused of using her position as an elected city offi cial PHOTOGRAPH OF ANITA SPRINGSTEEN BY EVAN SEMÓN continued on page 8 THE BIG SLEEP Five years after Elijah McClain’s death at the hands of Aurora cops, questions remain about ketamine. By Alan Prendergast
