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Griego: Sadness, anger reflect enormity of this loss

Published June 25, 2007 at midnight

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In the aftermath of the suicide of former Denver District Court Judge and City Attorney Larry Manzanares, there are the perceptions of those who knew him and those who did not.

Those who knew him, even if it was only in passing, gathered Sunday afternoon in the park across the street from West High School. In the crowd were law students and 17th Street lawyers, judges, City Council members and city employees, members of the organizations he supported and prominent Latino leaders. His neighbors were there. So was his older brother, Stan. U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar stood at the makeshift podium and offered a prayer. Lord, make me an instrument of your peace . . .

The enormity of their loss was evident in their tears and shaky voices and in the regret with which so many shook their heads and wondered aloud if they could have done something to help Manzanares. They told each other that they did not reach out to him because they did not know what to say or because they feared their attentions might be unwelcome or because they could not reconcile the story of the man whose police mug shot appeared in the papers with the story of the man they knew.

More than 200 people met on short notice because they loved Manzanares. They respected him and they needed to say that out loud for themselves, for each other and for the rest of Denver to hear.

"All of us need to remember the goodness inherent in every human being," Latin American Research and Service Agency board member Michael Carrigan said. "Every human being deserves dignity and justice and the presumption of innocence."

People are angry. At the prosecutors, at the media, at the Rocky for, among other things, its decision to devote the front page on June 14 to Manzanares' police booking shot, the felony charges filed against him in the theft of a city laptop and the discovery of pornography on that laptop.

Their fury spills out at the memorial service where a family friend is passing out pieces of paper with the words "Say No To rmNews" typed on them.

No one should have to suffer that kind of public humiliation, people keep saying to me.

The night before the memorial I crash a small dinner party where about 10 women, all successful professionals, most of them Latinas, gathered. Several knew Manzanares. They, too, decry the photo's size and placement.

I am taken aback when a few at the gathering say they believe the decision was made to enlarge Manzanares' mug shot on the front page because he was Latino. They argue the paper has demonstrated an ongoing pattern of bias against Latinos in its coverage. The message behind that large photo, one of the women argues, is yeah, he might have gone to Harvard and become a judge, but he was a Mexican and bad from the get-go. She says she is canceling her subscription.

I don't know, one of the non-Latino women says. I don't have that sensitivity to it. He was a public figure. I just think it was a tragic thing; it was the loss of a human life.

Would the paper have done the same if the accused had been a prominent white judge, someone asks. Most agree with me that we would have.

I didn't know Manzanares and I never saw this story in ethnic terms. But, I know what has happened is felt acutely within some segments of the Latino community. Again and again, I hear: He was one of us. Manzanares' death, coming on the heels of the dismissal of Community College of Denver President Christine Johnson, also Hispanic, has caused much sorrow and consternation and yes, anger. The reaction can be explained in part because the ranks of Latinos in prestigious, high-ranking positions are still thin, so when one succeeds there is a sense of shared celebration and accomplishment. It is a small world. We rise when they rise, and fall when they fall.

But this is not an ethnic story. It is a human one. Manzanares was a husband and a father. He was a friend and colleague to many. He was a judge and community leader. It is profoundly sad that, in the end, his vision tunneled to a single, irrevocable decision.

It is Manzanares the neighbor and colleague, the mentor and champion, who is summoned to the park on Sunday. It's the joyous Manzanares, the "do-gooder," their friend, Larry, they remember.

One by one, his friends speak and they recall the Larry who presided from the bench with integrity and intelligence, who was excited by his appointment to the job of city attorney. They recall the Larry with nicked shins from his mountain bike rides, the one who took the time to help law students, the one who just a few weeks ago traded some manure for some heirloom tomato plants that will bear fruit he will not have the pleasure of eating.

"He left this place a better place because he cared," Stan Manzanares said to applause. "He cared about people. He cared about life."

Four journals circulated through the crowd and inside people wrote down their memories of Manzanares and their prayers for his family. Someone planned to take the journals to his wife, Peggy. I imagine that when she opens them, she will find many pages stained with tears.

Remembering Manzanares

Those who knew former Judge and City Attorney Larry Manzanares gathered at a memorial service Sunday to share stories about the man who touched their lives.

"I wanted to share with someone how even and fair he was. He sustained my mother's rights, and mine as her heir, against big and powerful, big-pockets attorneys. . . . I'm just one of the little people who remembers him fondly. What a good judge and a fair man."

Ann Lemberg, a plaintiff in a wrongful death case that Manzanares handled as a judge. Lemberg, audibly shaken when she called the Rocky Mountain News on Sunday, said her case was later dismissed.

"When he became a judge, his appointment was based on a lot of merit. He was a qualified lawyer at the time he was appointed. . . . When he became a district judge, he was well-respected, well-regarded. He gave to the community. He was a teacher, a mentor, just a decent guy in a universe of a lot of people that aren't necessarily that decent or that industrious."

Michael Canges, Denver lawyer who was a friend and colleague

"I've known Larry Manzanares since he was a little boy. My son and Larry were very close friends all through middle and high school. When he went off to Harvard Law School, my son went to medical school, and their paths separated for a while, but they continued to be close friends for all these years. . . . I never heard anything negative about Larry Manzanares. He was a fine human being, well-respected in the community."

Luis Rovira, former Colorado Supreme Court chief justice, close family friend and mentor to Manzanares

"I was amazed by his integrity, by his willingness to serve the greater good. It's hard to find an individual like that, so it is hard to lose an individual like that."

Nita Gonzales, Escuela Tlatelolco president

"Larry has always been about community. Today is about who he is and who he was, but also about who we are as friends and community. If we sense that, we can celebrate who Larry was and who we all can be."

Katherine Archuleta, senior adviser on policy, Denver mayor's office

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