Colorado lawmakers are again seeking to provide more protections for police officers who report misconduct within their own agencies, taking a more compartmentalized approach nearly a year after a first attempt sparked resistance from a wide swath of law enforcement officials.
This time around, Democratic Reps. Jennifer Bacon and Chad Clifford spent months in negotiations and meetings with Colorado’s police chiefs, rank-and-file officers and county sheriffs across multiple working groups. The result is a whistleblower-protection measure, House Bill 1031, that is the first of what may become a four-bill package of overlapping law enforcement reforms that sprang from those negotiations and last year’s unsuccessful effort.
A second measure, House Bill 1136, would address concerns surrounding the state’s database of licensed law enforcement officers. Two more bills — one regulating the use of police body-worn cameras and another that’s been referred to as a “police officer’s bill of rights” — have not yet been introduced. Bacon said they may not come this year at all if their scope can’t be hammered out — another nod to the weight given to negotiations with the law enforcement lobby.
The whistleblower bill, which has not yet received its first committee hearing, states that officers who report misconduct are engaged in protected speech and that officers who face retaliation for doing so — such as demotion, reassignment or termination — can file a lawsuit in response.
The measure, if passed, also would give departments the ability to argue that any alleged retaliation wasn’t prompted by the officer’s whistleblowing. It would set the statute of limitations for filing the suits at two years.
“This bill protects people who protect us,” Bacon, a Denver Democrat and the House’s assistant majority leader, said in an interview. “It is in the public interest that (officers) know they can be a watchdog and that someone has the public’s back.”
Bacon referenced the retaliation experienced by McKinzie Rees, a former Edgewater officer. She told lawmakers last year that she ended up on a state “bad cops list” after she reported a supervising sergeant for sexual assault.
The sergeant later pleaded guilty to unlawful sexual contact and misconduct. Another officer testified that he, too, faced retaliation after he became aware of Rees’ assault; an attorney, he said, told him to “look the other way.”
The broader bill from last year was introduced three weeks before the 2024 session ended and sparked lengthy debates and heated opposition. It would have required investigations of all misconduct reports by officers. The measure also included additional changes to other police regulations, like the use of body cams.
That measure died on its final vote in the House, prompting the creation of four working groups between law enforcement and legislators. The groups covered whistleblower protections, body cameras, reforms related to the officer database, and officers’ rights and protections during discipline proceedings.
The working groups represented a more collaborative approach to tackling the type of policing reform that Democratic lawmakers have regularly considered for the past several years, which has at times resulted in acrimony and opposition from law enforcement groups.
The approach this year doesn’t mean that the resulting legislation will please everyone or will automatically sail through the legislature, said Clifford, a Centennial Democrat and police officer.
Indeed, Bacon said police whistleblowers who inspired the bill want stronger accountability mechanisms to hold higher-ranking police officials accountable.
But the collaboration does mean that both sides — law enforcement and reformers — were meeting early and often, Clifford said. That dynamic should help avoid some of the challenges that plagued the reform proposal last year, when law enforcement groups complained that the measure was dropped at the 11th hour and without their input.
“Do I think this is going to be a cakewalk in the building? No,” he said. “But will there be any cries for (process fouls)? Hardly at all.”
Arvada Police Chief Ed Brady, part of the leadership of the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, said he had been encouraged by the discussions with legislators and in the working groups, which Clifford said included dozens of people.
The chiefs are not opposing the whistleblower bill, though they’re seeking amendments and have concerns about the burden of proof upon departments and what qualifies as retaliatory measures.
“The (whistleblower) bill, like a number of other legislative matters, is based off a small number of incidents that have occurred,” Brady said. “Those couple incidents have tainted this area, particularly with employee relations, but this broad brush over all of law enforcement, I don’t think, is really indicative of how agencies are being run.”
The Fraternal Order of Police, which represents rank-and-file officers and was part of the working groups, is backing the whistleblower bill. The group did not return messages seeking comment.
The more collaborative approach was similar to one that Bacon took on another recent police reform effort: to prevent officers from lying to kids during interrogations. A first attempt to limit the practice died in the final days of the 2022 session, but a revamped version of the bill returned the next year and passed.
Bacon said she doesn’t regret co-sponsoring the first whistleblower protection bill that died an acrimonious death last spring. Protecting officers who are willing to report misconduct and illegal activity was important enough to risk frayed relationships, she said.
Clifford said he, too, understood why lawmakers ran the bill last year after whistleblowers raised concerns about their lack of protection.
“It is really important for the women who brought this issue forward to have been heard and responded to,” Bacon said. “… Community needs to care again that the people who are supposed to protect us are protected when they do the right thing. And I believe law enforcement wants to do the right thing here in supporting this.
“It has been thoroughly vetted and communicated about. Whether we all end up on the same page has yet to be seen. But we gave it an effort.”
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