Denver’s Independent Police Monitor weighs in cops’ response to Floyd protests

Breaking — More than 50 investigations of police misconduct remain open from Denver’s May and June protests.

The Office of the Independent Monitor (“OIM”) released a report entitled The Police Response to the 2020 George Floyd Protests in Denver, an Independent Review.  On May 25, 2020, George Floyd was killed during an interaction with four officers from the Minneapolis Police Department.  In the days after Mr. Floyd’s death, protests erupted throughout the United States, starting in Minnesota on May 26 and spreading to dozens of other cities in the succeeding days, including Denver.  Beginning on May 28, Denver experienced several weeks of sustained protests that ended in mid-June (“George Floyd Protests” or “GFP”).  The Denver City Council requested that the OIM conduct an investigation into the Denver Police Department’s (“DPD”) response to these demonstrations.  The report summarizes the results of that investigation and makes several key findings:

• The first five protest days were characterized by peaceful demonstrations, as well as property destruction, fires, and violence that resulted in injuries to numerous community members and officers.
• There were significant gaps in the DPD’s use of internal controls to manage police use of force during the protests, including deficiencies in its employment of body-worn cameras, tracking of less-lethal munitions, prompt documentation of all uses of force, and limitations on which officers were permitted to use certain high-risk less-lethal weapons.
• More than 100 community complaints were filed alleging misconduct by DPD officers during the GFP, and approximately 50 of these investigations remain open to this day.  During this review, we also identified other concerning uses of force, which we referred to the DPD for review and investigation.
• The framework the DPD used to organize the mutual aid provided by 18 neighboring law enforcement agencies had important deficiencies.  Most notably, the DPD did not have mutual aid agreements in place with those agencies and allowed them to use less-lethal weapons in Denver that were not permitted under DPD policy.

The report includes 16 actionable recommendations to address these and other findings.  “I appreciate the high level of transparency from DPD officers and community members as we performed this review,” said Independent Monitor Nicholas E. Mitchell.  “Chief Pazen and Director of Safety Robinson have expressed their desire to learn from these events, and I look forward to working with them as they make necessary improvements.”

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