The Denver PostPolice-reform ideas on way Tuesday, May 11, 2004 -
The Denver task force assembled in January to explore the use of force
by police, as well as citizen oversight, is scheduled to finish work this
week after months of often contentious hearings.
Among the panel's key recommendations: guidelines and support for
police to calm or "de-escalate" volatile situations without using force,
and granting more resources and authority to outside monitors. After more than three months of weekly meetings, the task force hopes
to deliver its recommendations to Mayor John Hickenlooper late this
week. Hickenlooper formed the panel in the wake of the July police shooting
of Paul Childs, a mentally disabled teenager who was holding a knife.
Officer James Turney was suspended for 10 months in April for violating
the department's "efficiency and safety" rules during the shooting. But in
the months leading up to that decision, the case highlighted what many
critics described as deficiencies in the department's policies on force
and the way it investigates itself. Not all members of the diverse, 38-member panel share the optimism of
co-chairman and former Judge Federico Alvarez that the panel will be ready
to submit recommendations this week. Some citizen activists on the panel say it needs at least another
month, alleging that the Police Protective Association, a union for police
officers, has deliberately hindered the process. "I would have to say that the PPA did accomplish its goal in this
process, which was to impede progress, to continue to put roadblocks in
the way of the process which would result in this committee failing to
meet its assigned task," said panel member LeRoy Lemos, a Latino activist
and police critic. PPA president Mike Mosco said union representatives have supported the
task force's work rather than hindered it. For example, the PPA pushed for
a two-week extension of the panel's deadline, which was granted late last
month. Detective Nick Rogers, a PPA vice president, noted that most, but not
all, of the panel's members strive for consensus. "We haven't agreed with everything that has been proposed, but we
haven't vehemently disagreed," Rogers said during a break in a task force
meeting on Wednesday. Police technician Al Archuleta, another PPA representative on the
panel, took a different tone in a report posted on the PPA's website last
month. The union has 1,310 members in Denver. "I'm still at a loss to understand why this task force was formed,"
Archuleta wrote. "It is my perception/reality that the men and women on
this department do an exemplary job. It is obvious that the mayor is
playing politics with the Police Department." Among the panel's members are Police Chief Gerry Whitman, former state
Sen. Penfield Tate III, City Attorney Cole Finegan, American Indian
activist Larry Left Hand Bull and Roxane Baca, a member of the volunteer
Public Safety Review Commission, called the PSRC. The city's costs in hosting the panel are approaching $5,000. Here's a look at what the panel has done on both topics: Much of the panel's discussion about use-of-force procedures centered
on haggling over words. For example, can an "edged weapon" be listed along
with firearms and knives as weapons that, when brandished, might
necessitate police using deadly force? A key recommendation of the panel, as noted by Alvarez, is a set of
guidelines allowing police the discretion to try to calm potentially
dangerous suspects instead of using force. That recommendation fits the agenda of Hickenlooper, who has urged more
police use of nonlethal Tasers rather than guns and bolstered training for
defusing confrontations. Last week, the city shifted $825,000 within its
budget to fund so- called critical incident training, a program to train
police in calming upset disabled people. Citizen-oversight recommendations mulled by the task force generally
with those that Hickenlooper suggested in December. Specifically, the mayor has pushed for an independent monitor to
oversee police investigations. The task force might take that further by beefing up the staff and
authority of that monitor and the Public Safety Review Commission. The panel has debated recommending a seven-member board appointed by
the City Council and the mayor - essentially a reforming of the PSRC. That board would work with the independent monitor and a staff of
lawyers, analysts and investigators. The board and the monitor could review internal police investigations,
observe internal probes as they occur, review use-of-force reports, order
further investigations, review disciplinary decisions and suggest policy
changes, among other things. If the panel makes the recommendation and the mayor accept it, the city
would need to pay for the new jobs out of an already tight budget. "What you won't find here is a San Francisco model where the entire
(internal affairs) function is taken out of the department" and given
independent status, co-chairman Tate said. "We just didn't have consensus
on that." The timing and effectiveness of the recommendations are anyone's guess
at this point. "I don't think we've gone far enough in effecting change,
but I'm happy with what we've done so far," Left Hand Bull said after the
Wednesday meeting. On Monday, Hickenlooper named Left Hand Bull as one of two new
appointments to the PSRC. |