Narrow Focus, Wide Perspective

In May 2020, after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer, Americans took to the streets to protest police brutality and racial injustice. Some police agencies treated the protesters as a threat, and in Denver, they used tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper balls as tools for crowd control.

“I kept seeing videos—these horrific videos online, on social media—about what was actually happening at the protest here in Denver, and that wasn’t matching up with what the media was showing,” remembers Milo Schwab, a solo practitioner who began his career in Denver in 2015 and founded Ascend Counsel in 2019. “What I could see was the overwhelming use of force [by police] on peaceful protesters.” 

Schwab felt he needed to get the issue before a judge who could grant a restraining order against the Denver Police Department. To do that, he needed to file a lawsuit. And to do that, he needed clients with legal standing. 

The case would change his career. 

Schwab’s first civil rights case had come a few years prior. His clients were a young woman and her mother. The woman said that years earlier she’d been sexually assaulted in middle school by boys who were “participating” in two long-running games they openly called “Titty Touch Tuesdays” and “Slap Ass Fridays.”

Her complaints about the sexual assaults were not the first ones school leaders had received. In fact, in his original complaint, Schwab noted that when an assistant district attorney heard of the pending federal lawsuit, she said, “That’s still happening?” She said she had told school administrators about the problem years earlier.

“This culture had persisted for all these years, and complaints to teachers, complaints to guidance counselors, complaints to principals, nothing was done,” Schwab says. “The school couldn’t produce a single document showing how they’d addressed it. They actually denied it even happened.”

Schwab filed a federal Title IX lawsuit against the school and the school district, arguing the then-teenager had been denied her right to access an equal education. To avoid further conflict at the time, administrators had removed the girl from her regular classroom while allowing the accused boys to remain. The next year, she spent half her days in the guidance counselors’ offices. She eventually withdrew from school. 

“There were [three] stories here: What happened to her, what created this broader culture, and how do you prove it?” Schwab says. “It’s really bad that boys are doing this, but it was also a concern because of the normalization of these acts.”

The suit was filed in early 2020, but since the incidents occurred during the 2016-2017 academic year, it would be challenging to gather supporting evidence. However, after an article about the suit was published, former students contacted Schwab’s office to recount similar experiences. The lawyer sought others via social media. He also hired a private investigator. 

He eventually identified 50 former students who said the practices had been the same during their school years. The school and the school district settled the suit with the complainants in 2024. “It was very rewarding to have the opportunity to work with someone and to address the particular, personal harms that person experienced, but also to bring to light a deeper concern that affected all students in the past—hopefully to end that practice going forward,” Schwab says. “Civil rights, for me, is that intersection of deep societal concern in public policy with the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of individual people, to remedy both personal wrongs and societal wrongs.”

In the summer of 2020, using the research skills he’d been developing, Schwab found four people who’d been hurt by Denver police officers while protesting. Each had a story to tell: a former soldier who said the police excesses he saw on American streets were contrary to training he’d received in foreign theaters of war in the early 2000s; an Ethiopian student; a man who was helping the injured when he was hit with rubber bullets; and a long-time activist who was physically assaulted. 

After a few sleepless nights and consultations with other lawyers, Schwab filed his complaint on June 4. Several lawyers volunteered to argue the preliminary injunction as co-counsel. A federal judge made his decision on June 5, granting a temporary restraining order—the first of its kind in the U.S.—against the Denver Police Department that restricted the use of projectiles and chemical agents against peaceful protesters, and required police to have their body cameras turned on while on duty. 

“That was the case that really kicked things off,” says Schwab, who had previously taken all sorts of cases: partner disputes, small business issues, contracts and the like. “That allowed me to have a little more of a runway to focus 100 percent on civil rights, which is what really motivates and makes me a better lawyer.”

Five years later, Schwab has worked with at least 50 clients in similar situations, including 13 people who say they were brutalized by police for their political expression, and two of the men shot by Kyle Rittenhouse in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  

Some of these cases involve incidents that happened years ago. Others are very new. At press time, Schwab had about seven open cases involving people killed by police officers, including 37-year-old Rajon Belt-Stubblefield, who was fatally shot by police in Aurora last August. 

“The excessive force cases are shocking, scary, sad, and far too common,” Schwab says. 

And they require both a narrow focus and a wide perspective. “In the civil rights world, you know your work is bigger than any particular client,” he explains. “It’s a balancing act to try to make sure you are focused on the wrong done to your client while remembering these cases are really important because society is being wronged, too.”