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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCITIZEN REVIEW BOARD - MINUTES - 05/14/2025 Citizen Review Board REGULAR MEETING May 14, 2025 at 5:30 PM 222 Laporte Ave, Colorado River Room (Main Floor) 1. CALL TO ORDER: 5:32 PM by Shamera Loose 2. ROLL CALL a. Board Members Present – Shamera Loose, Mike O’Malley, Veronica Olivas, Melissa Rosas Amy Hoeven, Valerie Krier, Michael Ruttenberg b. Staff Members Present – Sergeant Kim Cochran, Sergeant Jason Curtis, Assistant City Attorney Sara Arfmann, Jessica Jones c. Guest(s) – Lauren Johnson 3. AGENDA REVIEW 4. CITIZEN PARTICIPATION a. None 5. APPROVAL OF MINUTES a. April 9, 2025: • Correction to Minutes: For the approval of the March 12, 2025 minutes, Amy Hoeven and Valerie Krier abstained from voting. Amy Hoeven moved to approve the corrected minutes, which was seconded by Mike O’Malley. Motion passed. 6. UNFINISHED BUSINESS 7. NEW BUSINESS a. Nominations: • Melissa Rosas moved to elect Mike O’Malley to Vice Chairperson, which was seconded by Veronica Olivas. Motion passed • Amy Hoeven moved to elect Shamera Loose to Chairperson, which was seconded by Melissa Rosas. Motion passed. b. Honoring National Police Week for officers who have died in the line of duty. 8. BOARD MEMBER REPORTS a. Veronica graduated from the LCSO Citizen Academy last week. 9. STAFF REPORTS 10. OTHER BUSINESS a. Training: Internal Affairs Investigations: Presentation by Sergeant Kim Cochran and Sergeant Jason Curtis Guiding principles of FCPS are law, policy, ethics, and training. State agency grants licensing, and determines trainings. The vision of FCPS is to make the safest community in the nation. Board Member Question: Talking about ethics and training, does FCPS have any kind of accreditation? FCPS are CALEA certified. Nationwide, under half of the agencies are accredited, so it is a high standard. The agency is currently up for re-accreditation and CALEA does reviews of all FCPS policies to ensure that they are in compliance. Every four years, they also do an onsite accreditation process in addition to the remote process. Board Member Question: Does FCPS have an officer assigned to manage that process? Lieutenant Yonce. He has spent a ton of time going through all policies, along with Kelly Valdez. On the FCPS website, on the main page, under Transparency, there is a public portal so that people can input comments that go straight to CALEA. It also describes the standards, and who the accreditation manager is, etc. Board Member Question: A couple of years ago, when they were onsite, board members had an opportunity to come in and speak to them. Would that happen again? It would be likely. If FCPS says that they have a CRB, they would want to show them what that board does and what the results are. Law Enforcement Code of Ethics; officers are expected to recite this when they are sworn in. Board Member Question: If there is a Brady violation, are the officers allowed to stay on? No, an officer can’t work for FCPS if they are on the Brady List. It means that the court doesn’t recognize them as a credible person. One of the most grievous violations as an officer is dishonesty. If FCPS becomes aware that an officer is dishonest, IA has a moral/legal obligation to disclose that the District Attorney’s Office and to P.O.S.T Board. P.O.S.T now offers the names of officers who have lost their P.O.S.T certification Board Member Question: But could they go to another state? In theory, they could, but FCPS has been ahead of the curve on background checks for a long time. FCPS travels to the places that officers actually worked to obtain information from that agency. FCPS has started to see a lot of similar actions in other states. FCPS actively seeks feedback from citizens, both positive and negative. Telephone calls, letters, emails, etc. There are only about 25 employees in the Administrative Division, and they report to Deputy Yeager. Board Member Question: In regards to the crime analytics, can you explain more about why they are included in the administrative division? Both teams are under Professional Standards. Crime analysts are the people who aggregate all of the data, so they work closely with the rest of the administrative team. Board Member Question: Would they be willing to provide more information to a board member who missed the last training? Yes. Board members can also reach out to Jeremy Yonce to see about receiving additional trainings. FCPS used to have only one IA Seargeant, so having a second position added has really assisted with the workload. FCPS isn’t receiving more complaints, but there is a heavier administrative burden. Prior to 2019, if someone requested to look at IA files, FCPS could deny them. Afterwards, people were able to request IA files, though they are still redacted. Board Member Question: How often does FCPS have someone request this? Daily. Sometimes it is a citizen who wants to see how their case was handled, if they have a grievance. FCPS also gets quarterly requests from the public defender’s office for everything that was completed for that quarter. Most of the requests are related to low-level complaints. Board Member Question: If an officer is bullying another officer, can the bullied officer request to see the IA file of the one that was bullying them? Yes; however, there is a policy which allows the Chief to decide if someone should see the file, and there would be a possibility that the Chief may use discretion in a scenario like that. It may have a chilling effect if they allowed other officers just to request IA files. FCPS doesn’t investigate sexual harassment claims, which go directly to the City’s Office of Equity and Inclusion for investigation. Then the case comes back to FCPS, which does a 3-panel review, along with a chain of command review. If there is a serious finding, it will also get an FOP review. The Chief makes the final decision. Board Member Question: Does FCPS get very many staffing complaints? It ebbs and flows. When one is received, others tend to come along, and that may be because people feel more comfortable once one person has started talking about it, but it is still low, single-digit numbers. There is a degree of redaction and attorney review, prior to releasing anything. Board Member Question: Does that include body-cam footage? Yes. An IA report is releasable. It has to have happened after 2019, be related to on-duty conduct, and a sworn officer, and the case has to be completed. There are criteria for what must or may be redacted, and there are fees that the person has to pay, and then the officer is notified, and FCPS provides them with a copy as well. Usually, they want the investigative report, which summarizes everything, but they have the right to ask for access everything. Any person has the right to request any body-cam footage on any incident. Board Member Question: So FCPS gets their report from CIRT? That’s correct. Prior to CIRT, depending on the allegations, another agency would handle that. Board Member Question: If an officer is distraught, and he asks to speak to the chaplain, is that communication confidential? Yes. Administrative Investigations are classified as either performance complaints, level one investigations and level two investigations. For performance complaints, there are relatively minor consequences, like verbal discipline, a verbal reprimand, which is more extensive, or a written reprimand, which must be acknowledged and is usually accompanied by training. Level one investigations have more serious consequences, like suspensions. There is usually a willful component for these violations. Level two investigations include officer-involved shootings, and have the most serious consequences like demotion, or termination. FCPS believes in progressive consequences, so a first violation is often treated more lightly than repeated patterns. Board Member Question: If the board reviews a case, and the violations are sustained, is the board allowed to request the information on how that officer was disciplined? It would be eligible to be released after everything is complete. Maybe not to the Citizen Review Board, but other people would be able to request it. The final findings are released. Board Member Question: When talking to the witnesses, does FCPS take into account cultural context? Yes, FCPS meets people where they are, and talks to them in ways that they understand. Both sergeants just recently attended a training on Russel Strand’s Trauma Informed Interviewing and received a lot of good information. It is important to give people the opportunity to tell their story, and sometimes, an officer may have to educate themselves on where they are coming from in order to understand. Board Member Question: A lot of the time, the board hears from the same person with the same complaint? How is this handled for FCPS? There are chronic complainants, who regularly reach out to IA and CRB. If they have made an allegation that would be a violation of policy, IA will do an investigation, regardless. IA wants to have findings, even if the person is making a ridiculous allegation. Even performance complaints result in a formal notice to the officer and a formal chain of command review. There are findings, either sustained or not sustained, which outline the policies that were violated and the discipline. If they call back to complain about the exact same situation, we can refer them to the last findings. Board Member Question: Has FCPS ever had to file something asking a person not to come to the police department anymore? Yes, it happens. Once FCPS have determined that their complaints are not officer involved, they can reach out to the Mental Health Response Team to refer them, so that they can check in on them. The City has sought a restraining order in extreme cases, but that doesn’t happen very often. FCPS does have to relay information if someone makes a threat against officers. FCPS has started doing information reports, which allows them to make a record of any call that comes in with any complaint, even if the person doesn’t want to make a formal complaint. It helps FCPS identify patterns, either with the officer or with the complainant. Institutional knowledge is important. Information reports are the most common reports. PSU numbers are used for information reports in addition to more serious violations, so the numbers are increasing as time goes on. Findings are conclusions. An officer is either not involved, unfounded, exonerated, not sustained, sustained, or duplicate. Unfounded means the complaint is false, exonerated means something happened, but there was no policy violation. Exonerated means the incident occurred but the employee didn’t do anything wrong. Not sustained means FCPS doesn’t have enough information to determine whether or not it happened. Sustained means it did happen and there was one or more violation. Board Member Question: If there is insufficient evidence to prove the allegation, but there is evidence of a policy violation, would that policy violation be sustained? Yes, that happens frequently in IA investigations. IA would add another policy violation to the current investigation and show that that policy violation was sustained. Sufficient evidence is “more likely than not”, and there is sometimes disagreement on the findings. The highest ranking officer has the ultimate decision-making authority. Board Member Question: What happens when another agency violates FCPS policy? For instance, the high-speed chase in the park? Their agency would do their own investigation, and those employees would be dealt with by the agency responsible for them. The county has jurisdiction over the city, so occasionally, people will try to complain about another agency, but FCPS would send them to that agency to complain. Board Member Question: What if, for example, FCPS has an officer assigned to a Narcotics Task Force, and the team did a knock-and-talk, or a consensual search, and they were in violation of 4th amendment rights and someone puts in a complaint, does it fall under the task force now, if they are somewhere other than Fort Collins? They are still FCPS employees, so they are still subject to City policies, regardless of whether the employee is on a task force. If they are an employee, then they will be disciplined by the City. There is nothing that would excuse an officer for violating a City policy because they were working on a different task force. Each agency is expected to know what the policies are for the relevant agency. If FCPS assists an agency, it has to follow City policies as well, regardless of the situation. We can provide coverage for county officers but cannot join in their pursuit. The County has to ask for help, and a supervisor must approve it. Board Member Question: For informational files, are they kept in perpetuity, or does FCPS have a process for purging them? FCPS doesn’t purge any files and has all files going back to the 1970s. They are not the same as intel files, which fall under different rules and are not releasable or requestable.