Fewer state officers leave roles in 2020

Law enforcement unions and leaders warned throughout 2020 that the stresses of a pandemic, increased crime, protests against police brutality, calls for defunding departments and the passage of landmark police reform legislation could cause an exodus from the profession.

The multiple stressors and anxieties for law enforcement in 2020 were layered like an onion, said Detective Michael Kim, second vice president of the Colorado Fraternal Order of Police. People who join law enforcement generally do so out of a desire to serve, he said, and the past year has left many officers disheartened or unsure of their futures.

“I think this is a year for most law enforcement officers for some hard conversations and some hard decisions,” Kim said. “There are lots of (law enforcement) households across the country where the conversation has been, ‘Do I stick with this? Do I leave this job?’ ”

But data from individual Colorado agencies, a sur vey of law enforcement leaders and statewide numbers show that the effects of the year’s stressors varied drastically by agency.

Statewide data collected by the Colorado Peace Officer Standards and Training Board does not show any significant change in the number of peace officers leaving their jobs in 2020 and instead shows a decline in attrition.

At least 1,756 Colorado peace officers left their departments in 2020, which is fewer than the 2,061 separations recorded in 2019 and the 2,050 recorded in 2018. The numbers include officers who may have left one department for another and of ficers who were fired. The data includes sworn police

and sheriff’s deputies as well as some law enforcement employees who are not certified by POST.

More specific statewide law enforcement employment data isn’t available, but a survey released Monday of 69 Colorado police chiefs and sheriffs conducted by their professional associations also shows a variety of attrition rates. About half of the surveyed leaders who lost law enforcement employees in the last six months said attrition rates were higher than the year before.

Data from the three largest police departments tell differing stories. Denver saw a decrease in the number of of ficers leaving, Colorado Springs saw a slight uptick and Aurora saw a 61% increase in separations from the year before.

Denver police Chief Paul Pazen laughed when asked if it’s been a stressful year for law enforcement.

“Even prior to the pandemic, there was the political divide and the rhetoric,” he said. “It wasn’t like we were a unified country and community in 2020 before we knew what the word pandemic meant. Then you add the pandemic, then you add the economic conditions, then you add the calls for social justice and the results of that.”

A closer look at Aurora and Denver

A total of 69 officers and 18 recruits left or were fired from the Aurora police depar tment in 2020 — a 61% increase from the 54 people who separated from the department in 2019, according to agency data. About 45% of the separations in 2020 were planned, such as retirements, and the rest were unplanned, Dianna Giordano, director of Aurora’s human resources department, told a City

Council committee on Feb. 25.

The city tracks separations in six broad categories: deaths, medical separations, disability retirements, firings, retirements and voluntary resignations. The biggest increases between 2020 and 2019 occurred in the retirements and firings categories. The number of voluntar y resignations remained about level with the previous five years.

Since taking the Aurora police chief position on Jan. 1, 2020, Vanessa Wilson has fired eight officers — more firings than in the previous five years combined. Wilson said in an interview with The Denver Post that when she took the job she didn’t expect to have to fire such an unprecedented number of of ficers.

But she said she stands by her decisions to fire the of ficers, despite the fact that some in her department do not like her holding the of ficers accountable.

The officers she fired included a patrol cop who ignored a restrained woman’s cries for help after she fell face-down in the back seat of his cruiser and an officer who punched and used a Taser on a man lying on the ground.

“I think there are people who aren’t going to buy into my direction and my change I’m implementing,” she said.

Seventeen of the officers who left the department in 2020 filled out multiplechoice exit surveys about their reasons for leaving. Besides retirement, the most commonly cited reasons were “overall leadership” and “working conditions.”

Hiring shortfalls

While the Post data doesn’t show a significant change in separations, it does, however, show a steep decline in the number of new officers hired by Coloofficers rado departments in 2020. Agencies reported 1,610 hires in 2020, down from the 2,378 recorded in 2019 and the 2,801 recorded in 2018. The numbers include not only people newly recruited to the profession, but also lateral hires from agencies both in and outside of the state.

About 73% of Colorado law enforcement leaders said they had a shortage of fulltime officers and 51% said that shortage is worse than it was a year ago, according to the survey of chiefs and sheriffs conducted in December and Januar y.

Nearly three-quarters of the chiefs and sheriffs said fewer people were applying to work for their agencies than a year ago, according to the survey, which was conducted by the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police and the County Sheriffs of Colorado.

The Denver Police Department only hired 41 new officers last year — a far plunge from the 168 it hired in 2019.

Though the department was able to keep its ef fective strength of about 1,500 officers the same, the city’s financial crisis caused by COVID-19 means the police department wasn’t able to hire 97 officers it already had budgeted for, Pazen said.

Those officers are needed, the chief said, especially as tourists return to the city, large sporting events start back up and traf fic incidents increase as people return to their pre-pandemic routines and begin driving more.

Pazen said he has talked to some people who were drawn to law enforcement because of the pandemic and the calls for change in policing.

“People are talking about real change — then come do it,” he said. “If you want to fix things, then come do it.”