{"id":51924,"date":"2020-08-26T18:41:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T00:41:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-cu-be-the-first-in-colorado-to-defund-police\/"},"modified":"2020-08-27T00:41:27","modified_gmt":"2020-08-27T00:41:27","slug":"will-cu-be-the-first-in-colorado-to-defund-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-cu-be-the-first-in-colorado-to-defund-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Will CU be the first in Colorado to defund police?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"DiversifyCUnow,
DiversifyCUnow, the group of students, faculty, staff and alumni from CU Boulder, placed black cardboard cutouts of \u201cthe missing BIPOC students\u201d around campus on the first day of the fall semester to urge the university community to divest funds from the campus police department and invest in the lives of students who are Black, Indigenous or people of color.<\/span>Lauren Irwin\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Massive protests in the wake of George Floyd\u2019s death led to legislation to curb police brutality in Colorado. But two high-profile efforts to<\/p>\n

The Denver City Council and the board overseeing the Regional Transportation District this month rejected reappropriating law enforcement dollars to mental health and other social safety nets.<\/p>\n

That hasn\u2019t deterred a University of Colorado student organization from giving it a try. The CU group has picked up the mantle, hoping to set the path for statewide divestment, beginning on the more than 30,000-student Boulder campus, the largest in Colorado.<\/p>\n

DiversifyCUnow, the group of BIPOC students, staff, faculty and alumni, now has ties with all four of the CU campuses in the state. On Aug. 18, the team of students, faculty and staff met with state Rep. Leslie Herod, a Denver Democrat who spearheaded the passage of Colorado\u2019s police accountability bill in June, to discuss how defunding a police department might look different on a college campus, than in the city of Denver.<\/p>\n

\u201cDivesting from police is divesting from white supremacy,\u201d CU student Gwendalynn Roebke said. \u201cThey\u2019d rather speak over us, for us, instead of listening to us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The group hopes to reallocate some of CUPD\u2019s $7.5 million budget towards mental health training for BIPOC students, by BIPOC students, specific scholarships and housing for students who are Black, Indigenous or people of color, and mandatory and annual 16-week diversity training for all faculty, staff and students.<\/p>\n

CU is a predominantly white university. It is the least diverse in the Pac-12 athletic conference and the fourth lowest in the state. About 1% of the student population identifies as African American, and the majority of those students are athletes on the football or men\u2019s basketball team, the group said.<\/p>\n

The CU effort can learn from the Denver and RTD attempts to defund law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one thing to participate in protests or to see the graffiti on walls around our district, and it\u2019s another thing to consider how the specific legal language of a bill will change how our city interacts with its people,\u201d Hinds said.<\/p>\n

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock wasn\u2019t happy with the way the bill was introduced either, calling it reckless and hypocritical.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo long as I\u2019m mayor, we will not abolish the Denver Police Department,\u201d he said. \u201cSo long as I\u2019m mayor, we will not erode the capacity of law enforcement and first responders to keep our communities, neighborhoods, schools and homes in Denver safe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Shontel
Shontel Lewis<\/span>Courtesy photo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Shontel Lewis, a member of RTD\u2019s board of directors, earlier this summer introduced a resolution to end the agency\u2019s ties with police officers and security personnel.<\/p>\n

The board voted 14-1 against the measure, with Lewis casting the sole yes vote. Many members thought there were good ideas presented, but said the plan needed clarity about what the reallocation of funds means, before cutting the entire security budget.<\/p>\n

<URL destination=\u201d\u201d>Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

<URL destination=\u201d\u201d>Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

far, efforts to replace law enforcement with mental health workers have failed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51925,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,155,28],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-51924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-education","tag-headlines"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51924","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=51924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51924"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=51924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}