Police Officers Who Lie Could Be Banned From Serving In Colorado

COLORADO – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. Here’s the good news: about 99.5% of the nearly 14,000 cops in Colorado are not fired for knowingly lying in police reports, when they’re testifying, or during internal affairs investigations, according to Colorado POST, the state regulatory agency for Peace Officer Standards and Training.

Here’s the bad news: 0.5% of 14,000 is still a pretty big number. An estimated average of 70 Colorado cops are fired every year for knowingly lying in an official capacity, POST reports.

A bipartisan bill moving through the Capitol would make sure that smidgen of known liars never get to work as police officers in the state again. It’s already cleared the state Senate, and on Tuesday it passed out of the State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee of the House. It could become law in the next couple weeks.

The bill — SB-166, sponsored by Avon Democrat Dylan Roberts in the House and Rhonda Fields (D-Aurora) and Bob Gardner (R-Colorado Springs) in the Senate — would give POST the authority to revoke the certification of any officer found to have lied on the record — that is, in court, in an investigation or on a criminal document. If passed, the law would apply only to Colorado police officers, meaning that an officer decertified here still could seek police work in another state.

“If we’re going to make sure the public has trust in our law enforcement, penalties should be severe for those law enforcement officers that knowingly make untruthful statements,” said Rep. Roberts, who also works as a deputy district attorney in Eagle County.

POST currently does not have the statutory authority to revoke licenses from officers they know have lied on the record. The agency can only revoke a cop’s certification if that cop has been convicted of a felony or one of 44 misdemeanors.

Rep. Stephen Humphrey, a Republican from Eaton who was one of two “no” votes at Tuesday’s committee hearing, said he’s not convinced POST needs this extra authority.

“It would seem to me that a sheriff or a chief, if (a lying officer) comes to their attention, they fire that individual,” he said, adding, “There’d have to be a big problem in the culture of that agency” for someone to lie and keep their job.

There’s nothing preventing local sheriffs and police chiefs from firing lying officers, but, crucially, there’s also nothing preventing those found to be liars from seeking new jobs with other law enforcement agencies in Colorado. SB-166 would remove the option to simply move on to a new agency because without POST certification, a cop can’t hold any job with arresting authority — and the penalty proposed by SB-166 is permanent.

READ MORE in The Colorado Independent