Police Internal Affairs Transparency Bill Advances In CO Senate

By Jeffrey Roberts, CFOIC Executive Director for The Colorado Independent. A Colorado Senate committee Wednesday evening advanced legislation that would open records on completed law enforcement internal affairs investigations.

House Bill 19-1119, which passed the House last month, now heads to the Senate floor for debate. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s 3-2 vote kept the House version intact, despite an attempt to make the bill apply only to substantiated complaints against officers.

Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, suggested that amendment, noting that only substantiated complaints against attorneys ever become public. But proponents of the bill pointed out that some unsubstantiated complaints against police officers have led to high-dollar payouts by local governments in Colorado.

In one such case, cited by staff attorney Rebecca Wallace of the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the city of Aurora paid a man $110,000 to settle his claims against an officer who tased him in the back, even though he had complied with the officer’s directions. The police department found that the officer’s actions were “reasonable, appropriate and within policy,” but the city won’t disclose the internal affairs file so that the public can understand how that conclusion was reached.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent