“I think there is more pressure on bosses than before. It was a tough couple of years for law enforcement,” said one of the chiefs.
DENVER. Last year alone, nine police chiefs who had led the police department in the Denver metropolitan area for a total of 63 years stepped down from their posts.
The reasons vary greatly – from retirement to retirement to layoffs – spanning communities large and small, from Aurora and Lakewood to Golden and Morrison.
But industry insiders say there’s no doubt that the recent upheavals and scrutiny of the police, especially since the 2020 police killing of George Floyd sparked ongoing social justice protests around the world, are important to the painting component.
“I think the stakes are higher,” said Louisville Police Chief David Hayes, who is also president of the Colorado Police Chiefs Association. “I think there is more pressure on executives than there used to be. It’s been a tough couple of years in terms of law enforcement.”
At the same time, he said, recent resistance to police tactics has come to an end, a wake-up call for an agency that is in many ways out of touch with the society it serves.
“We need to stay connected to our community, but we don’t have all the answers,” Hayes said. “We’re trying to adapt to this new normal, but we don’t really know what the new normal is.”
The turnover of police chiefs in the metropolitan area – above the norm, according to several interviewees – comes amid an accelerated departure of top law enforcement officials across the country, especially in major cities. Last October, CNN reported that 39 major city police chiefs have quit in the last 18 months or so, affecting cities like Boston, Dallas, Miami and Detroit.
“The numbers across the country are staggering and alarming,” Vale Police Chief Dwight Henninger said.
Henninger, who is currently president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, said that from August 2021, chiefs across the metropolitan area, including Broomfield, Westminster, Englewood, Brighton and Business City, departures could be disruptive to society. .
“Communities need leaders who build trust and build relationships in the city, and building those relationships takes time,” Henninger said. “Cultural change will take time.”
The annual departure of the chief of the entire metro area began last August in Englewood, when chief John Collins stepped down after 10 years in office and 43 years with the department. This continued until last month when Business City chief executive Clint Nichols resigned under pressure and Brighton chief executive Paul Southard announced he would step down in the fall after six years in the position.
Southard, who has served in Brighton Police for a total of 34 years, said there was no dramatic turning point other than the realization that he is 61 and no longer young.
Former Lakewood Police Chief Dan McCaskey, who retired at the end of June, also spent six years at number one in Colorado’s fifth-largest city. The turmoil of the past few years — the COVID-19 pandemic and a dislike for the police — has helped him get away.
“There is no denying how stressful this job is,” said McCaskey, 60, who has been with the police for 36 years. “You are really in a pressure cooker, especially in the last two years, it’s like something I’ve never seen before. Lost a lot of public trust.”
Prior to Floyd’s murder in May 2020, the Lakewood Police Department was losing an average of two officers a month, he said. Since then, that number has jumped to three or four out of 282 officers. Some of McCaskey’s younger officers were frustrated that they were all “painted with the same rough brush” after officers thousands of miles away had failed on a mission.
Bill Kilpatrick said social unrest and police reform efforts over the past two years have not removed him from a senior position in the Golden Police Department. At 70, after 33 years as a cop in Golden and 10 years in Englewood, “it’s time for me to go.”
Of all the major departures at Metro Denver last year, Kilpatrick held the position the longest — 20 years. He retired in March.
“After the death of George Floyd, there is a new perspective on policing across the country and in Colorado,” Kilpatrick said. “There must be some people who look up to you but have never seen you before.”
After weeks of protests, state legislators passed a bipartisan police reform bill in June 2020, and the former chief heard his officials’ concerns about a provision in the bill that removes qualified immunity. This means that victims or their families can personally sue police officers for violating the constitution, and those officers can be held personally liable.
Kilpatrick said the two officers quit because of a new law putting pressure on rank-and-file soldiers. Officials wondered if they would remain in luggage when the city was pressured after socializing on the street, even if officials believe they are acting in good faith or in self-defense.
“Will the boss support my use of force?” asked Kilpatrick. “Will chengyuan support my use of force?”
The former boss said he would tell his officials, “If you do the right thing for the right reasons, I will support you.”
When Dan Oates was called to lead the police department in Colorado’s third-largest city in April, officer morale in Aurora “wasn’t very good.” Oates, who served as Aurora’s police chief for nearly a decade starting in 2005, was named interim chief after Vanessa Wilson was fired by a city manager who said he was critical of her leadership and the leadership of 700 police officers lost confidence.
Oates resurfaced in Aurora after five years as police chief in Miami Beach, after a tumultuous period for the department, which last year reached an agreement with the Colorado Attorney General’s office to change its use of force, recruitment and training policies.
The Attorney General’s year-long investigation found that law enforcement’s racial bias and excessive use of force routinely violated state and federal laws. Surveys show that department officers routinely arrest and harm blacks and other people of color more frequently than white residents.
Two days after the consent decree went into effect, Aurora agreed to pay $15 million to Elijah McLean’s parents to settle their civil rights lawsuit against the city following the death of a 23-year-old black man in 2019. Violent arrest. Two summers ago, Aurora became the center of protests against police brutality, some of which turned violent.
Oates, who served as police chief in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the early 2000s after 20 years as a police officer in New York City, said the crime rate in Aurora is significantly higher today than when they left the city eight years ago. While there were about 20 murders per year in the country a decade ago, Aurora expects between 55 and 60 murders by 2022, he said.
Meanwhile, violent crime in Colorado has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with the state’s homicide rate soaring to a 25-year high in 2020 after 293 people were killed, averaging more than five deaths a week.
According to an analysis by The Denver Post earlier this year, car thefts and serious assaults, such as shootings and stabbings, have also skyrocketed across the state.
In addition to the increase in crime, Oates said the rise of social media has made the job of a sheriff more difficult, saying it’s “almost entirely negative” when it comes to police assessment.
“You can have a platform with 300 followers pushing elected officials to discuss the policing agenda,” he said. “It created a huge amount of pressure.”
Tyler Pendergrass, director of advocacy for the ACLU in Colorado, said crime in the state is complex and not all crime is on the rise. The Post’s analysis found that while the rate of homicide, aggravated assault, and auto theft in Colorado rose in 2020, the rate of rape, theft, robbery, and burglary remained relatively unchanged or declined.
While the state’s 2020 violent crime rate was the highest since 1995, it was lower than it was between 1985 and 1995.
Given that long-term underlying social problems such as a lack of affordable housing, low wages and addiction are often root causes, Penderglass said it would be unwise for a new generation of police chiefs to be obsessed with filling prisons. criminal behaviour.
“The worst scenario is when someone comes in and says we need to double or triple the arrests,” he said. “They really need to focus on the root causes of the pandemic.”
Pendergrass points to alternative policing practices such as the Denver Support Team Support (STAR) program, which deploys psychiatrists and paramedics instead of police officers to respond to emergency calls, which is important in reducing violent interactions between law enforcement and the community.
The program began two years ago and is preparing to expand after gaining national attention. STAR management expects its team to answer more than 10,000 calls per year.
“Too much has been asked of the police for too long,” Pendergrass said. “If (the new chief) comes up with an alternative to policing, that could be a game-changer.”
This is starting to happen in Jefferson County, and discussions are ongoing about how to expand the Lakewood Police Department’s Community Action Group to cover a wider geographic area, said former Lakewood Chief McCaskey. The team works with the homeless and people with mental illness, as well as compliance checks for sex offenders.
Former Golden CEO Kilpatrick agrees. When he first took to the streets of Englewood in 1979 as a rookie cop, he says, the world was different.
“I came when we knew what was best for you,” he said. “Now, at the end of the day, we need to listen more to what our community wants and how we can have a greater impact on our community.”
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Post time: Aug-24-2022