Cops Fired For Lying About Beating And Pepper-Spraying Group of Women Appeal To Get Their Jobs Back

Two Denver police officers at the center of a high-profile beating outside the Denver Diner plan to appeal a judge's decision upholding their firings, their attorney said Friday.

Police Chief Robert White signed letters terminating Ricky Nixon and Kevin Devine for lying during the internal investigation into the July 2009 incident, in which surveillance cameras captured them beating and pepper-spraying a group of women outside the diner.

They were initially fired, but the Civil Service Commission reinstated them, a decision District Court Judge Elizabeth A. Starrs ruled Thursday was wrong. Footage from police department cameras did not match the officers' statements to investigators, the judge wrote in her decision.

The officers can appeal to the Colorado Court of Appeals.