AURORA, Colo. — A newly filed civil lawsuit claims a former Aurora school resource officer (SRO) was "grooming" a high school student by engaging in "explicit and inappropriate sexual conversations" via text.
The lawsuit names Egide “DJ” Ndagije and the Aurora Police Department as defendants. Denver7 is not naming the plaintiff in this case, since they were a minor at the time.
Ndagije was employed at Aurora Central High School when a 16-year-old student reached out to him for help in October 2023, according to the filing. The lawsuit claims Aurora PD "failed to properly vet, train, and supervise" Ndagije, who was 25 years old at the time.
"This is about the Aurora Police Department placing an inexperienced police officer in a position with a tremendous level of responsibility," said the attorney on the case, Matthew Haltzman.
Within the lawsuit are pictures of text messages allegedly exchanged between the plaintiff and Ndagije. In one of the messages, he asked the student if her mother buys her "panties."
Ndagije was charged with first-degree official misconduct in March 2024. He pleaded guilty to the charge at the beginning of 2025, according to court records.
"The officer will have a permanent conviction on his record for the rest of his life for official misconduct. He is serving his time on a probation sentence. He also had his POST certification stripped, so he can never act as a police officer in the state of Colorado again," Haltzman said. "We've had some pretty courageous members of law enforcement at the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the district attorney's office take this case and prosecute this police officer for his violations and official misconduct, and that was the criminal component of this case."
POST is the abbreviation for Colorado Peace Officer Standards & Training, which "documents and manages the certification and training of all active peace officers and reserve peace officers working in Colorado."
Aurora
Former Aurora SRO accused of sending inappropriate messages to teenage student
Haltzman said the civil case examines both the plaintiff's constitutional rights that were reportedly violated and any responsibility APD may have in this instance.
"It's a level of responsibility that needs to be taken. We need accountability, both from APD and this former student resource officer, and that will come in the form of a trial before a jury. And a jury composed of my client's peers will have the opportunity to hear what this individual and this police department engaged in, how that has been so impactful and destructive to her life, and then they will have to come up with a value for this case," Haltzman said. "I'm not excluding the possibility of a possible number being requested to a jury at some point, but what my client is looking for is for fairness and accountability above all. And that's not necessarily a specific dollar number, but she wants a jury of her peers to be able to hear about what happened to her."
The lawsuit claims the teenager contacted Ndagije for help with an ex-boyfriend who was reportedly threatening her.
"My client was a 16-year-old looking for help, for a police officer to give her some advice, which was totally reasonable and a totally normal thing for her to do. And this officer took that conversation and began telling my client, 'Hey, why don't you go ahead and take this offline? Let's use an encrypted application to talk. Hey, don't tell anybody about this. Don't tell your parents. Don't tell anybody in law enforcement that I'm talking to you,'" said Haltzman. "Started steering the conversation to her age, how good she looked, whether she was a woman yet, to sexual activity. I mean, totally inappropriate conversations for an adult to have with a teenager, let alone a police officer to have with a teenager."
Haltzman told Denver7 that the alleged interactions with the SRO eroded the trust the teenager had in law enforcement.
"APD, you know, they have a level of responsibility in this as well. They are putting an inexperienced police officer who is very young and a former graduate from this exact high school into this position where he's dealing with students every single day, and they know what's going on, or they should have known what was going on," Haltzman said. "We, at this point, don't know if this officer was properly trained, although all evidence suggests at this point that he was not."
According to the filing, Ndagije joined Aurora PD in 2021 and began working as a full-time SRO in August 2022. The lawsuit claims Ndagije did not meet the state requirement of at least three years of patrol experience before becoming an SRO.
"The Aurora Police Department failed to comply with the POST-mandated state requirements for the selection of School Resource Officers when it selected Officer Ndagije to become a School Resource Officer at Aurora Central High School," the document reads.
The teenager allegedly showed the messages to her mother in October 2023. Her mother called APD, and an Internal Affairs Investigation was launched, according to the filing.
The internal investigation revealed Ndagije allegedly took photographs of the 16-year-old's backside without her knowledge or consent, and "shared these photographs with others."
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A spokesperson with Aurora PD told Denver7 they do not comment on pending litigation. However, if Ndagije did not resign during the active internal investigation, he would have been fired from the department.
APD also made the necessary notifications to POST that ultimately led to Ndagije losing his certification.
Haltzman said they are now waiting on a response to the complaint, both from Ndagije and APD. Then, according to Haltzman, there will be a case management conference, and the discovery process will begin.
"Going through this civil claim is an act of bravery. I mean, it is her opportunity to be heard," Haltzman said about his client. "It is her opportunity to say, 'Hey, look, this is what happened. And not only should it have not happened to me, but it should not happen to anybody else in the future.'"
Haltzman believes there could be additional victims related to this case. He encouraged anyone who may be impacted to reach out to his law firm.
