{"id":53519,"date":"2020-06-05T20:42:26","date_gmt":"2020-06-06T02:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-and-prosecutors-aspects-of-dems-police-accountability-bill-are-problematic\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:04:59","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T10:04:59","slug":"police-and-prosecutors-aspects-of-dems-police-accountability-bill-are-problematic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/police-and-prosecutors-aspects-of-dems-police-accountability-bill-are-problematic\/","title":{"rendered":"Police and prosecutors: Aspects of Dems\u2019 police accountability bill are problematic"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Denver
Denver police respond to reports of a violent person the camp at St. John\u2019s Cathedral on May 19, 2020. One arrest was made. The camp grew to dozens of tents and as many as 80 people on the church\u2019s property.<\/span>Eric Lubbers\/The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

As Colorado Democrats\u2019 sweeping police accountability bill received its first hearing on Thursday, police, prosecutors and Republican state lawmakers raised concerns about unintended consequences.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill is needed. We agree these types of actions are needed to respond to the compelling interests of the community across this country for policing and the actions of police officers,\u201d said Ron Sloan, director of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police. \u201cIf we\u2019ve got one chance to make this bill as good as we can, we need to clean up some of the issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 217 was introduced on Wednesday in response to George Floyd\u2019s death at the hands of police officers in Minneapolis last week<\/a>, and it has the support of every Democratic state lawmaker and Gov. Jared Polis. The measure has been lauded as a major step toward stopping excessive use of force and rooting out bad officers as protests in Denver following Floyd\u2019s death reached their eighth day on Thursday.<\/p>\n

In fact, as lawmakers were weighing the legislation on Thursday hundreds of people gathered outside the Capitol calling for more police accountability.\u201cBasically what this bill will do is it will help address police brutality in Colorado,\u201d said Sen. Rhonda Fields, an Aurora Democrat and a prime sponsor of the measure. \u201cThis bill is calling for equal protection of black lives under the law.\u201d<\/p>\n

And while Republicans and the law enforcement community praise parts of the legislation, they fear that the measure is being rushed through too quickly and that problems will arise. They are pleading for changes to add specificity to the bill and limit its broad impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things in this bill that are good,\u201d said Sen. Bob Gardner, a Colorado Springs Republican who sat on the committee that heard the legislation Thursday, \u201cbut it needs a lot of work to find the right balance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Privately, some Democrats express similar concerns as lawmakers attempt to quickly pass the bill during a legislative session abbreviated by the coronavirus crisis. The lawmaking term is slated to wrap up before the middle of the month.<\/p>\n

The wide-ranging measure requires a number of significant changes for law enforcement, including that:<\/p>\n

Officers wear body cameras and have them turned on throughout their shift.<\/em>Body camera footage be released to the public within 14 days of an incident.<\/em>Officers can be sued in their individual capacities.<\/em>Police departments and sheriff\u2019s offices collect and report racial data for every interaction with the public.<\/em>Officers intervene when their colleagues use inappropriate force.<\/em>Officers who are fired from a law enforcement agency be prevented from moving to another police department or sheriff\u2019s office.<\/em>Chokeholds not be used.<\/em>Officers cannot use deadly force to stop a person they suspect has used a weapon in a crime or is armed \u2013 called the \u201cfleeing felon rule\u201d \u2013 unless there is an imminent threat of the person using the weapon as part of their escape<\/em>The Colorado District Attorneys\u2019 Council on Thursday endorsed many aspects of the legislation, including tightening the fleeing felon rule, banning chokeholds, increasing body camera use and creating a statewide tracking system of officers who are untruthful or fired.<\/p>\n

But Tom Raynes, who leads the organization, worries about small police agencies being able to pay for body cameras as communities struggle with the economic impacts of coronavirus, echoing concerns of the local governments. Data storage for body camera footage is very expensive.<\/p>\n

Raynes also is anxious about the release of that footage within 14 days could affect prosecutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see a successful version of this,\u201d Raynes said. \u201cThe issues and passions that bring us here are critically important, and they\u2019re not going away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock expressed concerns about prohibiting officers from using deadly force against people fleeing a suspected felony. He referenced the hypothetical case of an active shooter heading toward a crowd of people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the scenario of a school shooting, that\u2019s exactly some of the concerns that law enforcement would have,\u201d Spurlock said. \u201cIf you are in the middle of clearing a school and you still have a suspect there, law enforcement has to engage that individual. If he\u2019s running away and he\u2019s carrying a gun and they can see him and at the end of the hall there are a bunch of kids, the officer has a split second to make the decision to wait for him to start shooting and then take action or to interrupt that action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spurlock, a former president the County Sheriffs of Colorado association, said he\u2019s open to dialogue, but he wants to pump the brakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt seems to me that people want to punish the police officer of the state of Colorado for four bad cops in Minneapolis, Minnesota,\u201d he said. \u201cI beg you not to do that. I beg you to spend time and let\u2019s think about what\u2019s right for this state.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Bill 217 passed out of its first committee hearing 3-2 along party lines after more than six hours of debate and several amendments on Thursday night. It now heads to the Senate Appropriations Committee.<\/p>\n

Sun Staff Writer Jennifer Brown contributed to this report. 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","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Measure takes some steps forward, but others put officers and the public at risk<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":53520,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[394,663,28,52,265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-53519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado-legislature","tag-democratic-party","tag-headlines","tag-law-enforcement","tag-politics"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53519","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=53519"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53519\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88306,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53519\/revisions\/88306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53519"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=53519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}