Bill would protect vigilant officers
Former Edgewater police officer McKinzie Rees hopes to serve and protect again, but first she must get her name removed from a so-called “bad cops list” maintained by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office. It landed there, she said, as retaliation after she reported sexual assaults by a supervising sergeant.
That sergeant went on to work for another police department until this year, when he pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and misconduct and was sentenced, more than four years after the assaults and retaliation against Rees.
She testified to the state’s House Judiciary Committee this week that, even after her attacker was exposed, her complaint about still being listed as a problem police officer “is falling on deaf ears every time.”
Rees’ testimony, echoed by other frontline police officers from Colorado Springs and Denver about retaliation they faced after reporting misconduct, is driving state lawmakers’ latest effort at police oversight. Fresh legislation would require investigations of all alleged misconduct and increase protection for whistleblowers.
But the bill, titled “Law Enforcement Misconduct,” faces resistance from police chiefs, sheriffs, district attorneys and the Fraternal Order of Police who contend it would complicate police work and lead to unnecessary prosecutions.
While state leaders “are committed to addressing police misconduct,” the requirement that all allegations must be investigated could create “a caustic culture” within police agencies, said Colorado Department of Public Safety executive director Stan Hilkey in testimony to lawmakers during a hearing Tuesday.
“This bill is harmful to the mission of public safety,” Hilkey said, raising concerns it would lead to police “watching each other … instead of going out and responding to and preventing crime.”
The legislation, House Bill 1460, won approval on a 6-5 vote in the House Judiciary Committee. It would require investigations of all alleged misconduct by police, correctional officers and others who enforce the law in Colorado. Officers who report misconduct would gain the ability to file lawsuits if complaints aren’t investigated or they face retaliation.