A Denver police officer was fired last month after he asked out a domestic violence victim he met on the job, looked up her driver’s license photo and viewed more than 70 images that the woman posted on Facebook, according to a police disciplinary letter released Monday.
Officer Kendall Albert, who was hired in 2018, also used Facebook and Instagram on his work cellphone to view thousands of photos unrelated to work, including hundreds of photos of women in sexually suggestive clothing or poses, an internal investigation found.
Albert was evasive during his internal affairs interviews and claimed the survivor of domestic violence sought out his attention, Wendy Shea, acting deputy director at the Department of Public Safety, wrote in the Sept. 2 letter.
“The community must be able to expect that police officers will not take advantage of victims when they respond to calls for service — especially domestic violence victims,” she wrote. “This is true regardless of whether the victim appears to be overly friendly or even flirtatious with an officer… Victims should not and will not be blamed for inappropriate behavior of a police officer.”
Albert encountered the woman on Sept. 13, 2024, as he responded to a call about a domestic violence situation at East Sixth Avenue and North Ogden Street. He talked with her while they were at the scene, and then texted her about getting coffee at 11:40 p.m., as another officer drove the woman home, according to the disciplinary letter.
He texted her again at 1:44 a.m. the next morning and at 5:04 a.m., asking if she was still awake. The woman later mentioned the texts to another police officer, which started an internal investigation.
That investigation showed that Albert used Facebook on his work phone to view about 70 photos on the woman’s profile over a 10-day span after the domestic violence call, including multiple photos of the woman in a bikini. He looked up her driver’s license photo three times while he was off-duty, and “no legitimate law enforcement purpose existed” for him to do so.
Albert also used Facebook and Instagram on his work phone to view the social media profiles of unknown women, including hundreds of photos of women in suggestive clothing or poses, according to the letter. One of the images was associated with a pornographic website.
Albert could not be reached for comment Monday.
During the internal affairs investigation, the officer denied that he texted the woman in an attempt to establish a romantic relationship and said he quickly stopped texting her because he realized he shouldn’t have been texting a victim.
“Just didn’t feel right,” he said, according to the letter. “Shouldn’t have done that. Wasn’t thinking clearly and realized, you know, that was a mistake.”
His attorney argued during the disciplinary process that the woman was not credible and
had deleted texts between herself and the officer before reporting them, and that she asked him to coffee, not the other way around.
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