Assistance for Deputy Martinez
Donation protected
Short Story:
Ben needs your help with living expenses after being wrongfully terminated.
Long Story:
I am Eric and I am the brother of Ben Martinez. We are here in the greater Denver Metro area in Colorado. I am setting up this GoFundMe so that ALL donations will go directly to Ben and will be used to cover his daily living expenses such as; food, gas, phone, electric, legal fees and home payments. When you click on the donate button your generous contribution goes directly to Benjamin Martinez.
We have all heard the saying about there being two sides to every story and that the truth is often somewhere in the middle…
This is NOT one of those times.
On September 8th, 2016 after a year and a half of speaking up about police corruption within the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO), after enduring over a year of dealing with an extremely hostile work environment, Ben Martinez was wrongfully fired in retaliation for his whistleblowing.
This began in January of 2015 when Deputy Martinez was told by a GCSO Sergeant that complaints had been received about Ben’s work performance. Who complained? Well, no person came forward, so when Deputy Martinez asked for this to be substantiated, the GCSO was curiously unable to provide proof of his alleged poor work performance or any complaints from any persons, supervisors or his peers. Deputy Martinez has never been spoken to nor had any written documentation regarding his supposedly poor performance nor any complaints.
Fast forward to March of 2015 when another GCSO Sergeant began pestering other deputies regarding Deputy Martinez’s work. After failing to find even one person, since NO ONE came forward with any complaints, the same GCSO sergeant came to Ben a week later with an annual “evaluation” that had been made up with completely false accusations of things he had supposedly done wrong. This GCSO sergeant then provided Deputy Martinez with this annual “evaluation” and instead of doing what normally had been done in precedent, (which is to provide the employee with the annual evaluation document a week in advance and ask questions such as; “what accomplishments have you completed this last year?” etc.) and was instead told to review and sign the bogus document.
Deputy Martinez looked over the completely spurious document and realized that there were several things that were wrong and untrue and respectfully declined to sign and be a participant in GCSO’s deliberate falsehoods. This professional (more sarcasm) GSCO sergeant became irrationally upset, began yelling and childishly left the room.
Deputy Martinez challenged the phony annual “evaluation” (a major no-no at this good ol’ boys clubhouse) and when Deputy Martinez asked for the proof for this low score such as; prior verbal and written reprimands, previous performance reviews and documentation, the GCSO sergeant was unable to provide proof, because there was no cause for this made up poor annual evaluation score.
Amongst various false statements, Deputy Martinez was ‘dinged’ on this annual evaluation for selecting a night shift saying that he chose to bury himself on nights and was “trying to hide from supervisors by working a night shift”. EVERYONE gets to bid their shift based on seniority and if supervision is required for a particular shift then it is incumbent on the GCSO to provide a supervisor for the shift. Note that no one else was held to this non-existent standard or previously undisclosed expectation.
Why DOES a decorated, loyal, hard-working and veteran employee like Deputy Martinez need supervision?
Well, when a MARRIED COMMAND STAFF GCSO SUPERVISOR is having sex with one of their GCSO subordinates who has a bone to pick with someone they decided that they don’t like, a witch hunt like this is the predictable result! It is public record that this high ranking GCSO official sold another GCSO supervisor a house for way under its market value which brings into question of the conflict of interest and this remuneration is basically the equivalent of a bribe. Sound like this fits into the Gilpin County’s motto of committed to community through quality of service?
It’s common knowledge that this same GCSO supervisor was kicked out of his house by his wife and had to live in a camper while everyone in the community laughed at him. Nice to know that GCSO’s motto of “Committed to Community through Quality of Service” meant they were exceptionally quality “servicing” the community in a totally different way!
According to GCSO’s own policy 4.115 “…any inaccurate information will be corrected or removed”. Deputy Martinez was simply standing up for himself and the integrity of the department by not agreeing to sign a document that has false information. No good deed goes unpunished however, and after the annual “evaluation” a GCSO supervisor told Deputy Martinez that if he talked about this he would be written up for “insubordination”, EVEN OFF DUTY! Because violating an employee’s First Amendment Rights is the best course of action when covering up your corrupt departments’ false statements.
It is important to note that multiple brave and courageous GCSO deputies went to the command staff of the GCSO and vouched for Deputy Martinez and to protest the false accusations lodged against Ben.
After these false annual “evaluations” were reviewed for a second time, Deputy Martinez challenged the third and “final” annual “evaluation”. Mysteriously, all the negative and false statements were missing (because they never happened) yet Deputy Martinez’s third attempt at a fair and honest annual evaluation still had a poor score. This poor annual evaluation score thus denied Deputy Martinez any opportunity to be eligible for small and unimportant things (that’s sarcasm in case you can’t tell) like raises and promotions.
If these accusations were true, then why would the GCSO allow an employee in a highly sensitive position to remain employed without any write-ups, counseling or any other documentation and remain a liability to the agency for over an ENTIRE YEAR? Would you trust this agency to write you a ticket or document anything of any importance or trust them with your LIFE?!?
Now is the time to stand up for someone who has stood up to corrupt county officials who are doing everything they can to save their own selves while trying to destroy the life of an honest person.
There is a long and expensive legal battle upcoming. GCSO already has numerous legal cases filed against them by former employees already, so their poor track record clearly speaks for itself!
Ben Martinez was wrongfully terminated from his job, doing what he loved in serving the community, when GCSO politics came around and Ben’s honesty paid the price for exposing their corruption.
For those that don’t know, it is nearly impossible to get hired once a law enforcement agency has marked you as being having been “fired/terminated”.
I am so thankful that I work at a place where everyone from the top to bottom is fair and honest, that I don't have to deal with favoritism and where things are done the right way.
Ben Martinez has been awarded a life-saving commendation for his actions just a few years ago in April of 2013.
Help Ben get justice by helping him today. Anything you give will be very much appreciated. Please feel free to leave your own comments and tell us about a time when you were unjustly persecuted. If you are unable to donate, then spread this far and wide using any means possible like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media sites you use. These corrupt people won’t hold us back!
If you harbor any concerns about pushback from a public donation then feel free to donate anonymously!
Thank you in advance for your consideration and help! GODSPEED to all our brothers and sisters in blue holding the line against criminals, corruption and lies!
Know that we in the uniform are ready to defend those that have honesty, integrity and loyalty! The day may come when you need our help and we will band together to come to your aid when that time comes!
Thank you and God Bless!
Ben needs your help with living expenses after being wrongfully terminated.
Long Story:
I am Eric and I am the brother of Ben Martinez. We are here in the greater Denver Metro area in Colorado. I am setting up this GoFundMe so that ALL donations will go directly to Ben and will be used to cover his daily living expenses such as; food, gas, phone, electric, legal fees and home payments. When you click on the donate button your generous contribution goes directly to Benjamin Martinez.
We have all heard the saying about there being two sides to every story and that the truth is often somewhere in the middle…
This is NOT one of those times.
On September 8th, 2016 after a year and a half of speaking up about police corruption within the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Office (GCSO), after enduring over a year of dealing with an extremely hostile work environment, Ben Martinez was wrongfully fired in retaliation for his whistleblowing.
This began in January of 2015 when Deputy Martinez was told by a GCSO Sergeant that complaints had been received about Ben’s work performance. Who complained? Well, no person came forward, so when Deputy Martinez asked for this to be substantiated, the GCSO was curiously unable to provide proof of his alleged poor work performance or any complaints from any persons, supervisors or his peers. Deputy Martinez has never been spoken to nor had any written documentation regarding his supposedly poor performance nor any complaints.
Fast forward to March of 2015 when another GCSO Sergeant began pestering other deputies regarding Deputy Martinez’s work. After failing to find even one person, since NO ONE came forward with any complaints, the same GCSO sergeant came to Ben a week later with an annual “evaluation” that had been made up with completely false accusations of things he had supposedly done wrong. This GCSO sergeant then provided Deputy Martinez with this annual “evaluation” and instead of doing what normally had been done in precedent, (which is to provide the employee with the annual evaluation document a week in advance and ask questions such as; “what accomplishments have you completed this last year?” etc.) and was instead told to review and sign the bogus document.
Deputy Martinez looked over the completely spurious document and realized that there were several things that were wrong and untrue and respectfully declined to sign and be a participant in GCSO’s deliberate falsehoods. This professional (more sarcasm) GSCO sergeant became irrationally upset, began yelling and childishly left the room.
Deputy Martinez challenged the phony annual “evaluation” (a major no-no at this good ol’ boys clubhouse) and when Deputy Martinez asked for the proof for this low score such as; prior verbal and written reprimands, previous performance reviews and documentation, the GCSO sergeant was unable to provide proof, because there was no cause for this made up poor annual evaluation score.
Amongst various false statements, Deputy Martinez was ‘dinged’ on this annual evaluation for selecting a night shift saying that he chose to bury himself on nights and was “trying to hide from supervisors by working a night shift”. EVERYONE gets to bid their shift based on seniority and if supervision is required for a particular shift then it is incumbent on the GCSO to provide a supervisor for the shift. Note that no one else was held to this non-existent standard or previously undisclosed expectation.
Why DOES a decorated, loyal, hard-working and veteran employee like Deputy Martinez need supervision?
Well, when a MARRIED COMMAND STAFF GCSO SUPERVISOR is having sex with one of their GCSO subordinates who has a bone to pick with someone they decided that they don’t like, a witch hunt like this is the predictable result! It is public record that this high ranking GCSO official sold another GCSO supervisor a house for way under its market value which brings into question of the conflict of interest and this remuneration is basically the equivalent of a bribe. Sound like this fits into the Gilpin County’s motto of committed to community through quality of service?
It’s common knowledge that this same GCSO supervisor was kicked out of his house by his wife and had to live in a camper while everyone in the community laughed at him. Nice to know that GCSO’s motto of “Committed to Community through Quality of Service” meant they were exceptionally quality “servicing” the community in a totally different way!
According to GCSO’s own policy 4.115 “…any inaccurate information will be corrected or removed”. Deputy Martinez was simply standing up for himself and the integrity of the department by not agreeing to sign a document that has false information. No good deed goes unpunished however, and after the annual “evaluation” a GCSO supervisor told Deputy Martinez that if he talked about this he would be written up for “insubordination”, EVEN OFF DUTY! Because violating an employee’s First Amendment Rights is the best course of action when covering up your corrupt departments’ false statements.
It is important to note that multiple brave and courageous GCSO deputies went to the command staff of the GCSO and vouched for Deputy Martinez and to protest the false accusations lodged against Ben.
After these false annual “evaluations” were reviewed for a second time, Deputy Martinez challenged the third and “final” annual “evaluation”. Mysteriously, all the negative and false statements were missing (because they never happened) yet Deputy Martinez’s third attempt at a fair and honest annual evaluation still had a poor score. This poor annual evaluation score thus denied Deputy Martinez any opportunity to be eligible for small and unimportant things (that’s sarcasm in case you can’t tell) like raises and promotions.
If these accusations were true, then why would the GCSO allow an employee in a highly sensitive position to remain employed without any write-ups, counseling or any other documentation and remain a liability to the agency for over an ENTIRE YEAR? Would you trust this agency to write you a ticket or document anything of any importance or trust them with your LIFE?!?
Now is the time to stand up for someone who has stood up to corrupt county officials who are doing everything they can to save their own selves while trying to destroy the life of an honest person.
There is a long and expensive legal battle upcoming. GCSO already has numerous legal cases filed against them by former employees already, so their poor track record clearly speaks for itself!
Ben Martinez was wrongfully terminated from his job, doing what he loved in serving the community, when GCSO politics came around and Ben’s honesty paid the price for exposing their corruption.
For those that don’t know, it is nearly impossible to get hired once a law enforcement agency has marked you as being having been “fired/terminated”.
I am so thankful that I work at a place where everyone from the top to bottom is fair and honest, that I don't have to deal with favoritism and where things are done the right way.
Ben Martinez has been awarded a life-saving commendation for his actions just a few years ago in April of 2013.
Help Ben get justice by helping him today. Anything you give will be very much appreciated. Please feel free to leave your own comments and tell us about a time when you were unjustly persecuted. If you are unable to donate, then spread this far and wide using any means possible like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media sites you use. These corrupt people won’t hold us back!
If you harbor any concerns about pushback from a public donation then feel free to donate anonymously!
Thank you in advance for your consideration and help! GODSPEED to all our brothers and sisters in blue holding the line against criminals, corruption and lies!
Know that we in the uniform are ready to defend those that have honesty, integrity and loyalty! The day may come when you need our help and we will band together to come to your aid when that time comes!
Thank you and God Bless!
Organizer and beneficiary
Eric Martinez
Organizer
Arvada, CO
Ben Martinez
Beneficiary