{"id":47337,"date":"2021-04-16T16:37:50","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T22:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/area-law-enforcement-officials-talk-funding-police-reform-with-boebert\/"},"modified":"2021-04-16T22:37:50","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T22:37:50","slug":"area-law-enforcement-officials-talk-funding-police-reform-with-boebert","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/area-law-enforcement-officials-talk-funding-police-reform-with-boebert\/","title":{"rendered":"Area law enforcement officials talk funding, police reform with Boebert"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rep.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., center, met with sheriffs and police chiefs last week from Southwest Colorado.<\/span>Associated Press file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In a meeting with law enforcement officials from Colorado\u2019s 3rd Congressional District, U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert \u201cwas inquisitive to know what challenges law enforcement is facing in the Four Corners,\u201d said Durango Police Chief Bob Brammer.<\/p>\n

Boebert, R-Colo., met with sheriffs from Archuleta, Dolores and Montezuma counties, and the Cortez, Durango and tribal police chiefs on April 8. At the meeting, law enforcement officials discussed some of the biggest issues facing their departments and what support they would like to see from the federal level.<\/p>\n

They spoke about police reform bills and the possibility of more federal grant opportunities for local law enforcement, Brammer said.<\/p>\n

\"Brammer\"
Brammer<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Brammer said the Durango Police Department had a \u201cslight\u201d reduction in funding from the city level. The department received grant funding, but it was not as much as it had been in previous years, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe even were denied some grant funding this year through DOLA, the Department of Local Affairs, which would have enhanced our ability to do exactly what our communities are asking us for,\u201d Brammer said.<\/p>\n

The funding they were seeking included money for a new vehicle for a co-response program, which pairs police officers with crisis clinicians to more effectively respond to emergencies that involve helping people in crisis scenarios.<\/p>\n

The grant funding that many police departments are now looking for is to assist with reimagined policing concepts. Those include funding for \u201cofficer resiliency, officer mental health\u201d as well as \u201cco-responder teams to help law enforcement get more mental health practitioners out into the field to deal with crises that may not necessarily be law-enforcement related,\u201d Brammer said.<\/p>\n

Such ideas about policing have emerged with movements to defund the police. Brammer said initiatives to defund local police departments take away money from training and essential services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the defund the police movement, there\u2019s been a lot of conversation of taking money away from law enforcement, police agencies,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cThen the question is \u2013 and I think this is what our communities don\u2019t necessarily understand \u2013 if we take the services away and the expectations that police will handle certain types of calls, then who will handle these types of calls?\u201d<\/p>\n

While the debate about police reform and potentially defunding the police has entered the national conversation around social reform, Brammer said he hopes government representatives continue to listen to and work alongside leaders of law enforcement agencies while they write legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope that our elected officials would listen to the people that are closest to the problems,\u201d Brammer said. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be your chiefs and sheriffs and your marshals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brammer said the best way to deal with policing reform will be from police departments listening to their communities and representatives working with law enforcement leaders \u201cin a cooperative and collaborative way,\u201d that will make \u201clong-term lasting change that\u2019s not emotionally driven; it\u2019s factually driven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grace George is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brammer: Efforts to defund police may be counterproductive to achieving end goals<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-47337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47337","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=47337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47337"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=47337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}