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HB15-1285: Widespread Use of Body Cameras
Sponsors: Rep. Daniel Kagan, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Creates a grant program for law enforcement agencies to purchase body cameras and to train law enforcement officers in their use. Establishes a study group best practices on the use of body cameras and to develop those policies for law enforcement agencies.
HB15-1287: Police Training Improvements
Sponsors: Rep. Angela Williams, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Expands the Peace Officers Standards and Training board from 20 to 24 members, expands the POST board’s duties to include completing a review and evaluation of the basic academy curriculum and establishing subject matter expertise committees to develop skills training programs, academic curriculums, and POST board rules. Duties also include the development of a community outreach program and development of a recruitment program that creates a diversified applicant pool. Requires the POST board to include anti-bias, community policing and de-escalation courses in regular in-service training.
HB15-1290: Stop Police Interference Cop Incident Recordings
Sponsors: Rep. Joe Salazar, Rep. Daneya Esgar, Sen. Lucia Guzman, Sen. David Balmer
Summary: Guarantees a person’s right to film any incident involving a police officer. If an officer seizes or destroys a recording without consent or a warrant, or if the officer interferes with the recording or retaliates against the person making the recording, that person is entitled to damages and a civil penalty of $15,000.
SB15-185: Police Data Collection And Community Policing
Sponsors: Sen. Mike Johnston, Sen. Rhonda Fields
Summary: Known as the ‘Community Law Enforcement Action Reporting’ Act, or CLEAR Act. Requires each law enforcement agency to report disaggregated offense and arrest information – the numbers and types of charges that resulted from arrests; the race and gender of the defendants; the associated incident report numbers; convictions at trial, acquittals, plea agreements, and dismissals; and the race and gender of the defendants. Also requires reporting on the number of parole hearings held and the race, ethnicity, and gender of the inmates who received parole hearings, as well as those who are granted or denied parole.
SB15-217: Data Collection After Officer-Involved Shootings
Sponsors: Sen. Ellen Roberts, Sen. John Cooke, Rep. Angela Williams
Summary: Requires that after an officer-involved shooting occurs, the peace officer’s law enforcement agency provides the division of criminal justice with demographic information on the officer and individual shot and search, citation, and arrest information related to the incident. Colorado law enforcement agencies will provide this information for all shootings that occurred between 2010 and 2015, and for each successive year until 2020.
SB15-218: Disclosure of Misrepresentations by Peace Officers
Sponsors: Sen. Ellen Roberts, Sen. John Cooke, Rep. Angela Williams
Summary: Requires a state or local law enforcement agency that formerly employed a peace officer who applies for employment to another Colorado agency to disclose to the hiring agency information indicating whether the officer’s employment history included any instances in which the officer made a knowing misrepresentation.
SB15-219: Peace Officer Shootings Transparency Measures
Sponsors: Sen. Ellen Roberts, Sen. John Cooke, Rep. Joe Salazar
Summary: Requires law enforcement agencies to develop protocols for involving other law enforcement agencies in the investigation of a peace officer-involved shooting, requiring that detectives investigating an officer-involved shooting not come from the officer’s own agency. Also requires a district attorney who declines to file criminal charges against a peace officer in a peace officer-involved shooting to make a written public disclosure of their findings that were the basis for not charging the officer.
HB16-1117: Record Custodial Interrogations
Sponsors: Rep. Daniel Kagan, Rep. Lori Saine, Sen. Irene Aguilar, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Requires Colorado law enforcement agencies to make video recordings of all interrogations of suspects when they are investigating class 1 or class 2 felonies or felony sexual assaults, reducing the incidence of false confessions as well as bogus claims of coerced confessions.
HB16-1262: Law Enforcement Background Check Employment Waiver
Sponsors: Rep. Angela Williams, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Requiring law enforcement job applicants to sign waivers allowing their previous employers to release the applicants’ personnel records, and giving the state Peace Officer Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) Board the authority to deny certification to an applicant who entered into a deferred judgment. The bill addresses the problem of officers who have committed serious offenses but are able to hide their past by latching on with a different police force.
HB16-1263: Racial Profiling Prohibition
Sponsors: Rep. Angela Williams, Sen. Jessie Ulibarri
Summary: Updates the police profiling statute to forbid consideration of race, ethnicity, gender, national origin, language, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or disability in a law enforcement decision to pull a driver over or make a pedestrian stop.
HB16-1264: Ban Law Enforcement Use of Chokehold
Sponsors: Rep. Jovan Melton, Sen. Mike Johnston
Summary: Prohibits police officers from using a chokehold, except to save their own lives.
HB16-1265: Expunge Arrest Records Based On Mistaken Identity
Sponsors: Rep. Jovan Melton, Rep. Daneya Esgar, Sen. Mike Johnston, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Allows someone who’s arrested in a case of mistaken identity to have the arrest deleted from his or her police record, free of charge. Currently, the arrest record remains unless the arrestee goes to court, at considerable expense, to have it removed.
HB19-1119: Peace Officer Investigation Open Records
Sponsors: Rep. James Coleman, Sen. Mike Foote
Summary: Makes some aspects of an internal investigation file of a peace officer’s conduct with the public subject to an open records request. Allows some information to be redacted, and also allows the custodian of a file in which there is an ongoing criminal case to deny inspection of the file. The file becomes open for inspection after all the charges are dismissed or the defendant is sentenced. Applies to files of internal investigations were started after 4-12-19.
HB19-1244: Expand Peace Officer Mental Health Support Program
Sponsors: Rep. Jonathan Singer, Sen. Rhonda Fields, Sen. John Cooke
Summary: Requires law enforcement agencies to develop policies to support officers involved in a shooting or fatal use of force. Policies must address pre-incident training and preparation, support for the officer at the scene of the incident, post-incident support and services, guidelines for temporary leave or duty reassignment, and guidelines for return to duty. All policies must be completed by 1-1-20. Agencies must review them on a biennial basis.
SB19-091: Support Peace Officers Involved in Use of Force
Sponsors: Sen. Rhonda Fields, Sen. John Cooke, Rep. James Coleman, Rep. Terri Carver
Summary: Opens the peace officers’ mental health support grant program to additional “eligible applicants”, which include other types of law enforcement agencies, a statewide association of police officers and former police officers, and organizations that provide services and programs that promote the mental health wellness of peace officers.
SB19-166: Peace Officers Standards And Training Board Revoke Certification For Untruthful Statement
Sponsors: Rep. Dylan Roberts, Sen. Rhonda Fields, Sen. Bob Gardner
Summary: Requires the Peace Officers Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) board to revoke the certification of a peace officer if they knowingly made an untruthful statement or omitted a material fact on an official criminal justice record, while testifying under oath, or during an internal affairs investigation. The law enforcement agency certifies that it completed an administrative process, including any appeals process, as defined by a published policy of that agency and determined by a clear and convincing standard of the evidence.