July 24, 2003

We've often wondered in recent years whether Denver's manager of safety is a superfluous position. The outgoing safety manager, Tracy Howard, has been virtually invisible during the crisis over the shooting of 15-year-old Paul Childs, for example, and even a trusted old hand such as Ari Zavaras, whom Howard replaced, seemed as shocked as the rest of us by the existence of the "spy files" in the police department that he oversaw.

Nor is the question of who is really in charge, the police chief or safety manager, a new one. During 1993's "summer of violence," it was Chief David Michaud who took the lead in reassuring the public and launching initiatives, not the safety manager at the time.

So what good is the safety manager anyway? And do we really need a management layer between the mayor and the police, fire and sheriff departments?

The more we got to thinking about these questions since the election of a new mayor, however, the more we came to appreciate that the safety manager is the major civilian check and control over the police and fire departments. The buck ultimately stops with the mayor, of course, but he can't oversee police affairs on a routine basis. He can't take time to investigate every alleged infraction or alleged abuse of a citizen, for example, and decide upon proper punishment.

But a safety manager can. Indeed a safety manager must. The charter says every "specific disciplinary action" taken by the police chief is to be "submitted to the Manager of Safety for approval."

Moreover, the safety manager can "approve, modify or disapprove the written order of disciplinary action."

In other words, there is civilian signoff in Denver to every single disciplinary decision. That's no guarantee that police won't try to shelter the incompetent or worse within their ranks, if that's their inclination, but even then the safety manager will enjoy access to much more information than any other civilian. And that is clearly preferable to having no other civilian check besides the mayor and civilian review board.

Indeed, this oversight can be especially effective if the safety manager is a strong-willed person of independent judgment who doesn't automatically defer to the old-blue network.

At first glance, Alvin LeCabe seems to fit the bill. Mayor John Hickenlooper's new safety manager boasts a superb background for the job: He's been a prosecutor at both the federal and state levels, and done stints with the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the New Orleans police department. We also like the idea that he's not a Denver police insider yet his knowledge of law enforcement is such that he should never find himself at a disadvantage in a debate over proper procedure or reasonable expectations regarding police.

We've focused here on police discipline not because we consider the Denver department to be full of rogue cops - far from it - but because it is an area in which the public harbors great suspicion. The safety manager has other important duties, too, including cadet training. But his oversight of discipline is in fact the linchpin of civilian review for the many incidents that will never achieve the notoriety of the Childs case.

Copyright 2003, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.