Denver Postjim spencer
Paul Childs' spirit propels police reform
Thursday, December 18, 2003 -
As he announced one of the biggest police reforms in Denver's history, Mayor John Hickenlooper mentioned the exhaustive efforts of Police Chief Gerry Whitman. Hickenlooper also mentioned the hard work of Manager of Safety Al LaCabe. The mayor cited the roles of City Attorney Cole Finegan and Human Rights/Community Relations Director Lucia Guzman. He spoke of a handful of City Council members.
But Hickenlooper scrupulously avoided one name Tuesday while unveiling Police Department changes. Paul Childs. Hickenlooper never once said the name of the 15-year-old developmentally disabled kid whose death tipped momentum toward revamping police training and accountability. He couldn't mention Childs for reasons of legal liability. Rather, Hickenlooper insisted that these initiatives would have come even if officer James Turney had not shot and killed Childs on July 5. Hizzoner's protests notwithstanding, Childs' killing hangs over Denver police reform like a shroud. Acknowledged or not, Childs was the ghost in the mayor's office as Hickenlooper said he was adding two civilians to a formerly all-cop firearms discharge board. Childs' spirit hovered around the mayor's most controversial and important proposal - to add an independent monitor to the city staff to review and judge police actions. Hickenlooper wants the recommendations of a citizen task force before hiring the monitor. Nevertheless, the mayor's suggestion that the position be politically independent, with virtually full access to internal police hearings and records, is nothing short of radical. "The monitor may disagree with the outcome of police investigations," said LaCabe. What happens then will determine the magnitude of reform. A monitor who can't change an unjust decision is no more than a bearer of bad tidings. Still, it is hard to see any monitor without the Childs tragedy. Childs was one of eight civilians killed by police this year. But Childs, an African-American, was a legally blind, retarded kid with a seizure disorder. Though he held a knife when Turney shot him four times, Childs never made an aggressive move toward the officer or three other backup policemen. Childs died because he refused to drop the knife immediately when ordered to do so. He died because he took a few shuffling steps toward a shouting policeman. Childs made the public think about the delicate balancing act between protecting police officers and protecting civilians. Turney was not charged with a crime. The officer likely violated no departmental policies. Hickenlooper, who was inaugurated weeks after Childs' shooting, attended the boy's funeral. Still, the mayor claimed police reform as a front-burner issue that predated the tragedy. "This is something going on in every city in the U.S.," Hickenlooper maintained Tuesday. "Even before I decided to run for mayor, this was something I was concerned about." So concerned that his senior staff invested more than a thousand hours comparing Denver police training, equipment and discipline with dozens of other cities. So concerned that the city will buy 100 additional nonlethal Tasers and more than double the number of officers with crisis intervention training. So concerned that the mayor will assign a lawyer and mental health professional to advise police about dealing with the mentally ill and the developmentally disabled. Oversight of police actions will also increase. A new "Use of Force and Tactics Review Board" will examine "all major incidents involving use of force by Denver police officers, regardless of whether a complaint was filed," the mayor said. The manager of safety will publicly analyze how those shootings square with departmental policy. If the citizen task force goes for Hickenlooper's idea for an independent police monitor and changes in the use-of-force policy, you got yourself an honest-to-God revolution. Plenty of reasons existed for this revolution. Denver is a city where police once kicked in the wrong door and shot a guy to death. It's a city where police once riddled a car with bullets as a participant in a street fight tried to drive away. It's a city where cops have killed at least 65 people in the past 16 years and only two officers have been charged with crimes. By itself, Childs' killing may not have been enough to produce Hickenlooper's ambitious agenda. By itself, Childs' death may not have been enough to make police reform the first major initiative of the mayor's 5-month-old administration. But sometimes a reform movement needs a martyr. And whether or not the mayor can admit it publicly, in this case the body of a disabled teenager provided the inertia. Jim Spencer's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays in The Denver Post. Or call 303-820-1771. |