Kristen Fry was originally charged with disturbing the peace and assault. The case was dismissed after new video came to light.
DENVER — A woman accused of committing an assault and using the N-word at a Denver Public Schools board meeting has filed a federal defamation lawsuit alleging those claims are false – and that they damaged her reputation.
The incident at the center of the suit occurred Aug. 21, 2023, as the DPS board considered a recommendation to fire a middle school principal.
Kristen Fry spoke at the meeting in support of the principal, Kurt Dennis of McAuliffe International School.
“It was a difficult decision for me to speak that day,” Fry told 9NEWS Investigates. “I don’t usually do that. I don’t do things like this. It’s uncomfortable for me.”
But before stepping to the microphone, she twice leaned over and said something to Hashim Coates, a political consultant who was sitting next to the lectern set up at the meeting for public comment.
What exactly happened – and what was said – remains in dispute.
Four days after that school board meeting, Coates filed a report with Denver police, alleging he was “assaulted while attending a DPS board meeting.”
Fry, he asserted, grabbed him by the shoulder and referred to him as, “you dumb N-word.”
By then, according to the suit, members of the DPS board and administration had already accepted Coates’ allegation as fact.
“It is never OK — never — for a white person to walk up to a Black person and use that racial slur – ever,” board member Xochitl Gaytan said at a meeting a few days after the incident.
And Superintendent Alex Marrero said “some of us at the dais observed some of that in terms of the physical.”
Fry found herself facing criminal charges of disturbing the peace and harassment.
Five months later, prosecutors dropped those charges after video surfaced that showed her interaction with Coates. Twice, it showed her walk up to Coates, lean over, and say something – but the video did not capture any audio. It did not appear to show her touching him.
She then made her statement to the board in support of the McAuliffe principal – stopping once to turn to Coates, at which point she said, “Please be respectful of the speakers, sir.”
According to Fry, as she waited to speak she heard Coates “making comments like ‘white supremacist racist’ while white parents were speaking.”
“I felt the need to say something to prevent that from happening to me,” Fry told 9NEWS Investigates. “So, I leaned forward, I said, please be respectful of the speakers. … That is all I said.”
Fry’s suit names Denver Public Schools; current board members Gaytan, Scott Esserman, and Michelle Quattlebaum; former board member Auon’Tai Anderson; Coates; and MiDian Shofner, a political consultant who was sitting next to Coates.
In a statement, Coates said he “rejected the allegations” in the lawsuit.
“It is evident that her actions disrupted the meeting and sought to inflame tensions, and now she is attempting to manipulate the narrative through punitive litigation,” the statement said.
Shofner also released a statement in which she said she “categorically denies the frivolous and baseless allegations made against her in the lawsuit recently filed by Ms. Fry. The claims are riddled with untreated bias and serve an agenda-oriented purpose, rather than seeking truth or justice.”
Scott Pribble, a spokesman for Denver Public Schools, declined to comment. A message left for an attorney representing the district and the four current and former board members was not returned.
The move to fire Dennis, the McAuliffe principal, came after he had spoken out publicly to 9NEWS about the district’s safety policies in the wake of a shooting at East High School in which a student wounded two deans. Those policies had removed police officers from schools and left it to administrators to pat down students suspected of having guns.
The deans were patting down the student who shot them.
Board members also raised questions about what they termed a “seclusion room” at McAuliffe, where it was alleged that Dennis locked up misbehaving students.
Ultimately, the school board voted 6-1 to fire Dennis.
Fry said she believes she was targeted because she supported Dennis.
“What happened to me is political bullying and lawfare,” Fry told 9NEWS Investigates. “I was targeted in order to silence me, take me out of the political process, remove me from the board room or the board meetings, and put on notice all other parents who felt the same way.”
Contact 9NEWS investigator Kevin Vaughan with tips about this or any story: kevin.vaughan@9news.com or 303-871-1862.
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