{"id":113467,"date":"2015-04-06T17:07:48","date_gmt":"2015-04-06T23:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-committee-advances-racial-profiling-prohibitions\/"},"modified":"2015-04-06T17:07:48","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T23:07:48","slug":"house-committee-advances-racial-profiling-prohibitions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/house-committee-advances-racial-profiling-prohibitions\/","title":{"rendered":"House committee advances racial-profiling prohibitions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Demonstrators
Demonstrators observe a moment of silence in Denver on Nov. 24, 2014. A grand jury in Ferguson, Mo., decided not to charge police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. On Thursday, Colorado lawmakers debated late into the night a package of police-reform bills stemming from incidents such as those in Ferguson.<\/span>Joe Mahoney\/Rocky Mountain PBS I-News file photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

DENVER \u2013 Colorado lawmakers Thursday continued a conversation on police relations, this time focusing on racial profiling and misconduct.<\/p>\n

The House Judiciary Committee heard three measures that seek to bolster the state\u2019s law prohibiting the use of racial profiling by law enforcement, to limit the use of so-called \u201cchokeholds\u201d and to allow a judge to require prosecution in cases of serious police misconduct.<\/p>\n

After a more than six-hour hearing on racial profiling, lawmakers advanced the issue to the full House for debate by a 10-1 vote. Only Republican Rep. Kevin Van Winkle of Highlands Ranch opposed it.<\/p>\n

The committee then unanimously advanced the chokehold bill, followed by the special prosecutor measure, which passed on a 7-4 vote.<\/p>\n

The hearing kicked off with a conversation on racial profiling. A large committee room was packed with black and Latino community members who told stories of being singled out simply because of their skin color.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is the most personal bill for me to be testifying on,\u201d said Lisa Calder\u00f3n, co-chairwoman of the Colorado Latino Forum, who has been testifying on several police-reform measures making their way through the Legislature.<\/p>\n

Calder\u00f3n held a thick stack of citations in a manila folder documenting instances in which her son had been profiled. She suggested that there is a disparity between the number of traffic stops her son experienced compared with young white men.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is not a gang member, he is not a drug dealer, he\u2019s a college student who has worked part-time to earn his way,\u201d Calder\u00f3n said.<\/p>\n

The measure would add new categories of profiling to Colorado law that prohibits its use, including age, socioeconomic status, disability and sexual orientation. It also would prohibit the use of evidence obtained via profiling.<\/p>\n

The law-enforcement community is concerned that extending the state\u2019s law prohibiting profiling is not the best way to address the situation, but they acknowledge that profiling exists in some instances.<\/p>\n

They are worried about eroding clear consent laws that allow officers to make contact with individuals to ask questions.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers amended the bill to eliminate the consent language, but police officials say they must still review the bill, which faces an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers also amended the bill to add teeth by requiring profiling training for departments that are found to abuse the profiling law.<\/p>\n

The bill\u2019s sponsor, Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver, pointed to petty crimes as an example of disparities, including marijuana arrests. While blacks and whites consume marijuana at an equal rate, the arrest rate is 2\u00bd times higher for blacks.<\/p>\n

With tears in her eyes, Williams, who is black, thanked the committee for having a serious conversation on the subject.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message that you\u2019re sending in this state is that we care about the people of Colorado. We care about what\u2019s happening to communities of color.\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

There was much less debate on the chokehold proposal after the sponsor, Rep. Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, agreed to an amendment that would allow officers to use the technique in cases of self-defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about public safety, making sure that no one is unintentionally harmed by this practice,\u201d Melton said. \u201cIt rebuilds that trust that is so vital between community and law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on the special-prosecutor measure, prosecutors suggested that the bill was unnecessary, pointing out that there are already remedies through the courts if a prosecutor chooses not to pursue a case of serious misconduct.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hearing examines other police reforms<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":113468,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[94,13,51,1850],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-113467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-colorado-state-government","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-police","tag-racism"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113467"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=113467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}