The mother of the children is in jail owing to a custody dispute, but a Colorado police officer who was hailed as a hero during the 2012 Aurora theater tragedy is still free on charges of raping his own 5-year-old daughter and physically beating his son.
About twenty years ago, in 2002, Michael Hawkins, 55, was formally charged with six felony charges of sexually assaulting a child and one misdemeanor count of child abuse. The alleged crimes occurred between 2002 and 2021.
According to court documents obtained by the Denver Gazette, he is also accused of molesting Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins’s daughters and nearly blacking out in 2018 while holding their eldest son underwater. The boy believes this was revenge for catching Hawkins fondling one of the girls.
The two youngest sons, aged 10 and 13, are presently living with Pickrel-Hawkins at a domestic violence shelter, but Hawkins is battling for custody of them through a court-ordered reunification therapy program.
In an effort to mend the children’s strained relationship with their father, the treatment is underway. However, Pickrel-Hawkins has rejected the sessions, describing them as “nothing but manipulation, psychological abuse” and “coercion and gaslighting.”
A judge found her guilty of interference in July and sentenced her to seven weekends in prison starting on August 31.
Hawkins, on the other hand, posted $50,000 bond and was freed under supervision with GPS monitoring.
While responding to the mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, he became famous for his heroic actions, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people and injuries to 70 more.
Hawkins testified at the trial of the gunman after the massacre, recounting the tragic events of taking the body of a six-year-old girl from the theater with a heavy heart.
Affidavit claims that Hawkins informed his ex-wife that “all of his issues were related to the theater shooting,” which led to his medical retirement from the Aurora Police Department in 2018 due to his post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to investigators, Pickrel-Hawkins informed them that “many of the issues existed beforehand” before the alleged 2012 rape of his daughter, which occurred after he responded to the gunfire at the movie theater.
It is believed that his daughter was sexually abused for years after the incident. Additionally, he allegedly subjected the girls he adopted from his ex-wife to years of sexual abuse.
Christopher Estoll, Hawkins’s attorney, told the Denver Post that his client “adamantly denies the accusations” and that Hawkins had cooperated with prosecutors throughout the inquiry.
“Not a credible witness and is highly manipulative,” Estoll stated in a court file dated August 1, according to what Estoll said.
Hawkins had prior allegations of physical aggression leveled against him.
In 2017, a lady who asserted her innocence over a fake assault allegation against her was accused of police brutality along with three other policemen from Aurora.