By Rocky Mountain News
June 8, 2004

May 25, 2004

Mrs. Helen Childs
5550 East Thrill Place
Denver, Colorado 80207

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Dear Mrs. Childs:

In recent months, Mayor John Hickenlooper has announced a series of sweeping reforms intended to change the way the Denver Police Department ("DPD") interacts with Denver citizens, to provide officers the training and tools they need to protect public safety, and to help Denver restore public confidence in its police force.

Since taking office on July 21, 2003, Mayor Hickenlooper and his team have met with community members, researched best practices from across the nation, and worked to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to broaden the scope of police training, increase the availability of Tasers and "less lethal" weapons for officers, provide enhanced legal and mental health training to the Police, and add citizens to the board that reviews police shootings.

On December 16, 2003, Mayor Hickenlooper announced the following practices to take force immediately:

At Mayor Hickenlooper's request, the DPD, will, over the next two years, increase its number of crisis intervention team ("CIT") trained officers to 500. This represents 50% of the officers who, by serving in uniform street assignments, are the first responders to calls from the public. This will be double the state wide standard in Colorado, which calls for 25% of first responders to be CIT-trained. Over the next year, DPD will also expand supervisory training on critical incident management to all 200 sergeants.

Mayor Hickenlooper has instructed Police Chief Gerry Whitman to put tasers into the hands of a hundred additional on-duty patrol officers. With the 200 Tasers that DPD already has, every precinct car, tactical unit, and supervisor are equipped with Tasers. The additional 100 Tasers will supply a Taser to every regularly scheduled patrol operations assignment. Mayor Hickenlooper also instructed Chief Whitman to begin training 200 officers to use the "less lethal" shotguns, already owned by DPD.

Mayor Hickenlooper has announced a policy change that will add two community members to the Firearms Discharge Review Board. The Manager of Safety, Al LaCabe, and Chief Whitman also have agreed to create a board comprised of experienced law enforcement personnel to review all major incidents involving the use of force by Denver Police Officers, regardless of weather a complaint has been filed.

As you know, Manager of Safety LaCAbe issued a public report announcing his review of the shooting of your son, Paul Childs, and he has made public his views on this subject. I am attaching a copy of his letter, dated April 15, 2004, to make sure that you have seen it. Manager LaCabe also has announced that he will issue a public report after any DPD incident involving the use of force that results in a citizen's death or serious bodily injury.

As the City Attorney, I have assigned an attorney to work on a full-time basis with the DPD. This is the first time that a lawyer has been assigned on a full-time basis to the Police Department, and this lawyer will work to provide daily advise ensuring that public safety is a critical factor in any training, tactical, or policy decisions.

The City currently is recruiting a mental health case manager to work on a full-time basis with DPD to train its officers on interacting with the mental ill, developmentally disabled, and with people in crisis. The training procedures will be used to assist officers in situations involving use of force on citizens who may be mentally ill or developmentally disabled.

Mayor Hickenlooper has required that a recruiter be restored to DPD who will focus, among other things, on attempting to recruit available minority candidates for DPD to ensure a diverse police force.

On January 8, 2004, Mayor Hickenlooper also announced the formation of a broad-based, representative task force to review the DPD's Use of Force Policy and to determine what changes should be made concerning civilian oversight of the DPD. The task force, consisting of 38 individuals from all the facets of our community, focused on the Hickenlooper Administration's proposals regarding the Police Department's Use of Force Policy and civilian oversight, including:

(1) Placing a new preamble in the Use of Force Policy reinforcing DPD's commitment to preserving human life and advocating that deadly force should only be employed when no other reasonable alternatives are available,

(2) Adding language to the Use of Force Policy clarifying that officers have the option to de-escalate the use of force if they believe that de-escalation makes sense in the situation in which they find themselves, and

(3) Proposing models for enhanced civilian oversight.

The task force began meeting in late January and met once a week over a period of 104 days. Additionally, subcommittees were created to look at the Use of Force Policy and at civilian oversight models, and those subcommittees met several time in addition to the once weekly meetings. It is anticipated that the task force will present its recommendations to Mayor Hickenlooper in the next few weeks.

Lastly, the DPD has made specific changes in the protocol that it uses for screening for mentally ill or developmentally disabled parties involved in an incident. Specifically, new training methods have been developed for the personnel that handle 911 calls to provide that operators inquire whether the person involved has a history of mental illness or is developmentally disabled. The police personnel also receive training from Dr. Evan M. Axelrod and from Nicoletti-Flater Associates on special populations, including people with disabilities, that may affect that interaction with law enforcement.

As Mayor Hickenlooper has stated repeatedly, the shooting of Paul on July 5 was a terrible tragedy. I hope that you will find the information that I proved to be of use to you.

Sincerely yours,

Cole Finegan

City Attorney

Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.