A Colorado mother is spending weekends in jail after she refused to comply with a court’s order for two of her sons to attend therapy sessions with their father, a former police officer who has been charged with sexually and physically abusing some of their six children.
Democratic state lawmakers and advocates are now speaking out against family reunification therapy, a court-ordered practice meant to rebuild a relationship between a child and their non-preferred parent following a contentious divorce or allegations of abuse. Supporters have also raised more than $75,000 to support the legal fight of 48-year-old Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins, who is seeking attorneys to help her through custody proceedings as well as the criminal case against her ex-husband. After she objected to the two boys, ages 10 and 13, meeting with their father under the supervision of a counselor, a judge ordered her jailed for contempt.
Meanwhile, her ex-husband, Michael Hawkins, was released with a GPS ankle monitor after posting a $50,000 surety bond on Aug. 2.
The Denver Gazette first reported on Pickrel-Hawkins’ story and documented the emotional morning when she reported to jail — one of seven weekends the Gazette said she has been sentenced to serve.
“The charge came out of the concern that I raised for my children’s welfare and their well-being. And I objected to the results that were happening,” Pickrel-Hawkins said at a rally on Thursday.
Hawkins, 55, was once hailed as a hero following the 2012 mass shooting at an Aurora movie theater that left 12 dead. But after allegations of violence on the job and reported medical issues, he retired. According to a heavily redacted arrest warrant obtained by HuffPost, others close to him said he’d been abusive for years. He was arrested and charged in July with seven felony counts of sexual assault of a child and one misdemeanor count of child abuse. Castle Rock police say he continually sexually assaulted a family member living in his household from 2002 to 2021 and physically abused one of his sons in 2018.
A spokesperson for the 18th Judicial District told HuffPost that Hawkins’ criminal case is still in its initial stages and that he has not yet entered a plea. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Oct. 31.
His attorney did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment but has previously said Hawkins “adamantly denies” the charges. In an August court filing, the attorney wrote that Pickrel-Hawkins was “not a credible witness” and said she was “highly manipulative.”
Erin Siegel, an advocate for family court reform who set up the GoFundMe for Pickrel-Hawkins, told HuffPost that she often sees comments like those made by Hawkins’ attorney, which she described as “misogynistic.”
“Who is the one who is not credible, the one with six felony allegations against them from the district attorney … or a person who fled the scene and went to a safe house to protect her children,” Siegel said.
Pickrel-Hawkinsdeclined to comment to HuffPost, and a court hearing has been scheduled for Sept 12. In a brief video message, she thanked people who had donated to her via GoFundMe.
“I cannot thank you enough for standing with me to fight for the children. Together we do this for the children,” Pickrel-Hawkins said.
Hawkins and Pickrel-Hawkins married in 2004, and he was hired by the Aurora Police Department the following year. However, the two would separate and reconcile multiple times throughout their marriage.
In December 2021, Pickrel-Hawkins asked him to move out of their house into an apartment on the property, according to the arrest warrant. In an interview with an investigator in 2022, Pickrel-Hawkins described the final separation as scary, contentious and stressful, stating that Hawkins was walking around their property with a rifle and endangering their children.
Pickrel-Hawkins told the investigator Hawkins’ behavior was “increasingly agitated,” according to the warrant. There had been years of issues in their marriage, and she experienced domestic violence, she said, but it wasn’t until recently that she’d learned about sexual abuse involving one of their children.
The girl spoke with forensic interviewers at the Child Advocacy Center and said that she had been sexually assaulted multiple times by Hawkins throughout the years and that the last time it occurred was Christmas 2021, before the father moved out, the warrant said. She described Hawkins as manipulative and a pathological liar, according to the warrant.
A sibling described an incident in which Hawkins used an arrest hold and held him underwater in a pool after he jumped in and hit his father, the warrant said. The son told the interviewer he believed he was about to take his last breath when Hawkins released him and he was able to swim away and cough up the water, the warrant said.
He also described witnessing Hawkins molest another child, the warrant said.
Interviewers from the Child Advocacy Center were also told by the children that Hawkins had made sexually inappropriate comments about their teenage friends, according to the warrant.
According to the court filing by his attorney, Hawkins did not become aware of the accusations until October 2022 and did not make any attempts to contact his estranged wife about them because a temporary protective order was placed against him.
His attorney also noted that Hawkins has been in regular contact with detectives in the two years since the investigation began and is committed to defending himself in court.
The former police officer first made national headlines for his response to the Aurora Century 16 movie theater in 2012, when a gunman killed 12 moviegoers and wounded 70. In 2015, Hawkins testified in court about the horrors he witnessed, including pulling a 6-year-old girl, Veronica Moser, out of the chaos of the theater only to realize she was already dead.
Pickrel-Hawkins recalled the night of the shooting in her interview with investigators. She said Hawkins returned home that night with empty eyes, and his uniform was as stiff as cardboard from the dried blood. Despite the traumatic experience, Hawkins returned to work the next day, she said.
Three years after the theater shooting, Hawkins, along with three other officers, allegedly tackled, punched and kicked an unarmed woman, OyZhana Williams, then falsely accused her of assaulting the police officers, according to a lawsuit filed by Williams in 2017.
Surveillance footage of the incident posted by the Denver Post showed Hawkins stomping on the woman’s head while she was held on the ground by other officers. The city of Aurora settled her lawsuit for $335,000 but did not admit to any wrongdoing.
The Aurora Police Department did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment. Hawkins medically retired from the department as a sergeant in 2018, the department told Denver station KUSA-TV in August.
Hawkins’ arrest warrant detailed additional accusations that he had kicked and assaulted a pregnant woman and shot a dog in the face while on the job. Pickrel-Hawkins told investigators that the Aurora Police Department had sought to transfer him because he was a liability, and she believed he was unstable. Hawkins claimed his issues were related to the theater shooting, but she told investigators she thought many issues existed beforehand.
The Larimer County district judge overseeing the couple’s divorce case ruled on July 9 that a number of Pickrel-Hawkins’ allegations were “not supported by the evidence,” according to Hawkins’ attorney. The temporary protective order was dismissed days before prosecutors brought the criminal charges against Hawkins on July 29.
The judge also ordered the reunification therapy meant to reconnect Hawkins and his two sons.
However, Pickrel-Hawkins told the Denver Gazette she feared the reunification therapy had been harming the boys, who she said had been crying uncontrollably, having explosive outbursts and expressing thoughts of self-harm after attending the sessions with their father. She described the program as “nothing but manipulation, psychological abuse. It’s been nothing but coercion and gaslighting.”
“They can’t sleep before and after,” Pickrel-Hawkins told the Gazette. “It causes major anxiety. It exacerbates their PTSD symptoms. It has absolutely been devastating to them.”
Lighthouse Christian Counseling, which has reportedly been providing the therapy, did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Reunification therapy has come under fire in recent years, particularly as children have spoken out against it. A pair of siblings in Utah barricaded themselves in their mother’s home and livestreamed it on TikTok after a judge ordered them to return to their father, who they said was abusive. ProPublica documented the practices of a family reunification camp in Texas, prompting Colorado to become the first state to pass legislation to limit the use of such camps.
The practice is based on what’s been described as parental alienation syndrome, in which children reject one parent after being manipulated by the other. It’s been dismissed by groups including the American Psychiatric Association and American Medical Association as lacking evidence, and a United Nations report noted it could be used by domestic abusers to further perpetuate violence. Yet the concept continues to come up in custody disputes in family courts.
“This is a complicated process, but our goal is to determine if there’s a safe path forward for the children to be back in relationship with their parent,” Lighthouse Christian Counseling said on its webpage about its services in court-ordered reunification therapy.
The language on alienation can be seen in the filing by Hawkins’ attorney, who wrote that his client has “experienced almost a year of alienation from his family in various forms.” He added Hawkins has “slowly been making progress” in the therapy sessions. The boys have not spoken publicly about their view of the process.
Tina Swithin, who aims to raise awareness about abusive dynamics within the family court system with her blog One Mom’s Battle, told HuffPost that she’s seen an industry grow around the concept of alienation.
“I often say that they are turning childhood trauma into revenue streams, and it’s so wrong,” Swithin said.
She doubted that reunification therapy could ever be successful.
“We know that because you can’t force two people into a relationship when one of them is rejecting that relationship,” she said, “and likely because the other person is abusive.”
The case of Pickrel-Hawkins and her family has prompted a dozen state lawmakers in Colorado to sign a letter supporting more protections for children. State Rep. Meg Froelich spoke outside the Colorado Supreme Court last week, demanding change to the family court system.
“Today’s rally serves as a reminder that we have a long way to go to achieve justice for survivors and protect our children,” the Democrat said in a statement.
She’s currently sponsoring a bill that makes further changes to family courts, including requiring the court to give “strong consideration” to children’s preferences in custody arrangements in cases where there are allegations of abuse. The bill is co-sponsored by Democratic Rep. Tammy Story.
“When it comes to Colorado’s family court system,” Story said in a statement, “we need to ensure it’s working for the survivors and families – not the abusive parent.”
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
