DENVER | The partisan divide over how to confront escalating street crime came to the fore Thursday as a Colorado legislative panel advanced a Democrat-sponsored bill designed to let local communities use state grants for neighborhood improvements in high-crime areas.
Debate over the bill, co-sponsored in the Democrat-led Senate by Sens. Janet Buckner of Aurora and Nick Hinrichsen of Pueblo, mirrored the national conversation heading toward the midterm elections. Republicans insisted it’s time to directly fund police who have weathered protests against police brutality after George Floyd’s killing. Democrats say a host of factors, including the coronavirus pandemic, are to blame and that a multipronged approach is needed.
The Senate Local Affairs Committee advanced the bill by a 3-2 party-line vote after its sponsors and supporters, including law enforcement officers from Pueblo, Arapahoe and Boulder counties, argued providing local governments grants to clean up crime-prone areas would free up police to address other priorities, including violent crime-solving and the fentanyl crisis.
The bill would allocate more than $10 million in grants to be distributed by the state Department of Public Safety.
“We’re not talking about old, failed policies that did not work,” Buckner said, citing burglaries at businesses in her hometown of Aurora in blighted areas that she said could benefit from the bill. “The city of Aurora is strapped to find ways improve crime prevention and safety. I live in Aurora, and I’ve done my homework.”
She insisted it’s just the first of several bills this session to address crime and promote police recruitment and retention, adding she’s working on the latter with GOP Sen. John Cooke, a former Weld County sheriff.
Crime — or the perception of rising crime — and the soaring cost of living are key issues this midterm election year. Colorado’s minority Republicans in the Legislature have seized upon a national GOP playbook to argue that policy reforms after Floyd’s killing in 2020 have led to a dramatic rise in violence in Democrat-led cities such as Denver and Pueblo.
Republican Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer assailed the safe streets bill on several fronts, saying that local governments already have the ability to reduce blight through zoning and that local police agencies already use localized crime data that the bill would require the Department of Public Safety to compile prior to dispersing the grants.
“I’m actually having a hard time understanding how spending $10 million is going to reduce crime in our state,” Kirkmeyer said. “This looks like a bill that’s trying to do something that’s already being done.”
Funds could be used for graffiti and trash removal and erecting lighting and security cameras in high-crime areas. Grant proposals that would arbitrarily force the homeless to move elsewhere or that call for facial-recognition technology aren’t eligible.
Pueblo Police Chief Steven Noeller, representing the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police, and Sheriffs Joe Pelli of Boulder County and Tyler Brown of Arapahoe County testified for the bill, arguing it would help their forces focus on crime-solving, devote funds to re-staffing, and other priorities.
The bill advances to the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The whole idea that Buckner has done her homework is ridiculous. They really need to talk to real police instead of police chiefs. There are many better ways to do police work that bring the attention and interaction down to the community level. As someone who spent many years in different community policing programs and many years patterning crime in the community and addressing it as a detective, detective supervisor, and special unit supervisor (Gangs, DART, SWAT, etc), I can tell you that the legislature’s attempts are just smoke and mirrors. The whole data driven approach is a sham. Data driven is silly. If the department doesn’t know exactly what and where the problems are, then you have already failed. If you have to wait for someone to tell you where the problems are, it is too slow and you are incompetent. You have to have an intimate grip on the neighborhoods and the business areas. You have to be on top of daily crimes in the neighborhoods and have a close relationship with the citizens. It does not come in the way these people imagine. Further, these legislators and chiefs will not address their actions that have driven police officers away. The police reform bill is so flawed and misdirected that it is keeping officers from doing their jobs. You can hire as many police officers as you want and you will not be successful if they feel that it is too dangerous to actually try to do the job. When you are prosecuting officers for simply putting their arm around someone’s neck in a struggle, you don’t have a clue about police work or us of force. It is popular but it is devastating to the people trying to do the job.The hysteria that has come out of the George Floyd death has resulted in weak chiefs, prosecutors, and legislators pursuing even the most minor mistakes by officers. The same people are the ones who have lied to you about how well officers are trained. Officers receive about half of the training necessary to do the job. Training is a means to an end. Training is not an end in itself. Now, when the jury is making a decision, they are told that the officer got the training. Yes, he got a brief class ten years ago. So, the chiefs are covered and are free to abandon the officer to a jury that thinks that he just disregarded his training. Until you fix the police reform bill and get real about what it takes to police a community, you will be doing “feel good” measures that seem to be all a legislator or chief has to do.
Don, I don’t mean this as a snarky comment, a sincere question. Have you considered throwing your name into the hat for Chief if it opens again? I think you wrote a very thoughtful position around the PAR program? You have the balanced perspective of the day to day work, and understand the political pitfalls. You’ve typically touted the need for community engagement, which is so critical. Police are often tasked with preventing crime, but they are most often only in a position to respond to a crime after the fact. Thus, community engagement is key. Why not consider it?
I’m assuming because of the political BS that comes with it…. if that’s the case, maybe present an idea to the City Manager where you can serve in an advisory role to help inform and shape policies?
Amazing that John Cooke would have anything useful to bring to the table. Who wants to hear from a sheriff who advocates for selective enforcement of only laws with which he agrees?
What does “directly fund” mean to legislators? Cities already have dedicated funds in their budgets for the police. This sounds more like an indirect dig by some who picked up on cry of a vary-few anarchists who mentioned defunding police, which never happened, because city councils knew better.
This does sound like our Legislature is addressing the issue on our behalf. I can’t believe that anyone would oppose this bill, but oppose they did, just because–well, you know. And we note that more bills to address this issue are in the pipeline. This one, on its own, is not the ultimate solution, if indeed there is one. But crime and its solutions should not be partisan issues. It should be all hands onboard.
The politicians caused the increase in crime. SB 217 and bail reforms empowered criminals. You ruined the communities when you went after quality immunity and called your state’s law enforcement officers “white supremists and racists. You can’t kick people in the nuts and smirk at them then expect them to put themselves in in a position to lose everything.
Want to know why cops left in droves?
20-20 hindsight politicians… you did this.