Health Safety Education and Services - Regular Meeting

Welcome back to this weekly meeting of the Health and Safety Committee with Denver City Council. Coverage of the Health and Safety Committee starts now.

Good morning and welcome to the Health and Safety Committee meeting for Wednesday, June 24th. My name is Darrell Watson. I'm honored to be the chair of the Health and Safety Committee as well as the city council member representing all of Define District 9. To everyone that's biking to work today, be safe with the Safety Committee, safety first. two briefings uh today and one item on consent but before we roll into the agenda why don't we have introductions and i'll start with the gentleman to my left you'll start and finish well we have someone online good morning paul cashman south denver district six uh thanks for being here sir and i think president pertain good morning diana romero campbell southeast denver district four and right and right on time

Good morning. Jamie Torres, West Denver District 3.

All right. Well, we have a full bunch here. We have two briefings this morning. So why don't I turn it over to Monitor Castle for your presentation and your annual report.

Thank you very much. Good morning, members of Council and community. Before I begin, I'd like to make a few quick remarks. Thank you for allowing the OIM this opportunity to review with you our 2025 annual report. In 2025, the OIM achieved several successes. The OIM, together with the COB and community, limited the scope of a new program called Education Based Discipline, later changed to Development, which eliminates discipline and replaces it with training. In 2025, through the OIM's hard work together with the then Director of Safety, Armando Saldate, a directive was issued that required an internal review of each suspected overdose incident at the jail, allowing the DSD, the Department of Safety, and the OIM to dig into facts surrounding such overdoses, including a review of rounds. That directive unfortunately was rescinded by Director Gardner on May 27th of this year. 2025 was also a challenging year for the OAM. Our budget continues to get significantly cut and has been pretty much so for the last three years and will continue to be reduced moving forward in 2027. We are being asked to do more every day with less. We had significant turnover in 2025. We were also subject of a city audit. However, the biggest challenge to oversight began in December of 2024 with a notice of a program called, and that continues through today with the most recent executive department of safety directive to 2026 dash 0 0 1. Since December of 2024, I see a trend developing within all branches of safety, which minimizes or eliminates accountability for officers and deputies who violate departmental rules, eliminates transparency, eliminates oversight, and excludes the community for matters regarding their safety at the hands of law enforcement. This trend potentially puts community members, persons in custody, officers and deputies at risk and may open the city up to further liability due to law enforcement misconduct. After the death of Paul Childs, the killing of Paul Childs, many promises were made to the community. Those promises were repeated again after the deaths of Jessica Hernandez, Michael Marshall, victims of the George Floyd police enforcement and the protests, and countless others. For 21 years now, Law enforcement and the OIM have worked together to improve safety for community members and officers. These recent changes from EBD to Taser to the new directive but specifically the most recent directive by the Department of Safety issued on May 27th threatens to put Denver back in the position it was in in 2003 with the killing of Paul Childs. and where the police were policing themselves. OIM will continue its commitment to oversight and will work with the departments to understand their goals, collaborate and consider changes that do not minimize or eliminate the role of the OIM or its mandate. If we forget the lessons of the past, we are destined to repeat them. Together, we must address this recent trend and fight for the oversight community demanded and was promised. Thank you. Moving on to our 2025 annual report, on March 15th of 2025, the OIM issued its annual report. As a reminder, the key OIM responsibilities include monitor and make recommendations on complaint investigations and disciplinary findings on all cases. Monitor officer involved shooting and in custody death investigations. make recommendations for improving policies, practices, and training, conduct outreach to community and law enforcement, and cultivate community member officer dialogue through mediation. There are three different sections of the Office of the Independent Monitor. One is the monitoring section that looks at the cases individually and also recommends, reviews discipline and recommended discipline. There is a policy section of our office and there is an outreach section. With regards to the monitoring section, we're gonna talk about the number of administrative complaint investigations reviewed. In 2025, there were 415 DPD complaint investigations and 623 DSD complaint investigations. With regards to critical incident investigations monitored, there were 11 DPT officer involved shootings. So whenever there's a police shooting, we are notified and we will respond to interviews and or the scene or both. Actually, we always attend the interviews and sometimes we go to the scene as well. There were three deaths during interactions with DPD officers and eight deaths while in DSD custody or during interactions with DSD deputies outside the jails. One of those deaths we know for sure was of natural causes. With regards to the OIM policy team, the policy team conducted an analysis of trends and patterns in 2025 regarding DPD complaints, DPD uses of force, DSD complaints, and DSD suspected overdoses in the jails in addition to additional projects. I wanna talk a little bit right now about DPD complaint trends. 1, turn that we identified is sustained community complaints complaints that were sustained with at least 1 specification fell from 18% in 2024 to 11% in 2025. Specification duty to obey was up to 68%, which has doubled over the last four years. And that is significant because that particular specification, so imagine it's like a charge that is a violation of a rule, is an A through F category. So it runs the complete gamut of potential discipline. where when the matrix was created, each rule violation was assigned a category, A, B, C, D, all the way up to F. And that was done with the input of the community, input of law enforcement, academia, all the people, 100 plus people who came together to create the matrix looked at every violation and assigned it a particular category. Those categories are important because they identify where in the spectrum the community and law enforcement felt that that violation should fall. By taking them out of their specific category violations and putting them now into duty to obey, they've basically reversed the matrix and allow themselves now to discipline officers in however they feel is appropriate. The next thing is general arrests and warrantless searches. General arrest directive specifications are up to 12% in 2025 from 6% in 2024. That's double. warrantless searches complaints directive specifications are at 5% in 2025 from 0% in 2024. And the reason that I identify these two particular trends is because these are some of the ones that are most impactful on the community. They are where you find significant conflict with the community and engagement with the community and sometimes those instances can there can be force. Both of these specifications, general arrest procedures and warrantless searches, will be eligible for education-based development. With regards to DPD uses of force, the trend that we are seeing is in 2025 the DPD recorded 73 use of force policy directives. That's a 28% increase from the number of use of force policy directives recorded in 2024. The number of community complaints regarding use of force for DPD nearly doubled from 34 in 2024 to 67 in 2025. even while internal complaints for use of force decrease significantly from 24 in 2025, excuse me, in 2024 to six in 2025. So we're seeing more complaints about use of force from community, but we're seeing less internal complaints about such force. With regards to DSD complaints, The trends that we are seeing are community and persons in custody complaints are up 25% from 2024. Internal complaints are up 22% from 2024. Body worn camera directive violations remain consistent with previous years. In 3 years, we have not seen the body worn camera numbers move in any significant way. Failure to make required rounds up to 3% in 2025 from 1% in 2024 and 0% the two years before. So we're seeing an escalation in failure to make required rounds. Data and Technology Governance Department order, which covers phones, bringing in your phone into the jail, which is prohibited, misuse of a laptop or computer violations is up to 8%, which is a jump from in 2022, they were at 3%, in 23, 2% and in 24, 6%. So we're seeing that escalation. EEOC complaints jumped to 3% in 25 from 1% in 24 and 0% in 23 and 22. The reason that I identify these particular trends especially is in light of the new EDOS directive issued by Director Gardner. And I'm bringing attention to them because they are all the subject of this new directive, which will eliminate accountability for these offenses unless maybe there's harm that is not clear and instead of addressing them. So instead of addressing the body worn camera issue, the failure to do rounds, the bringing in the cell phones, the EEOC complaints, Instead, what they have done is they have put them in the hands of supervisors at the jail and then the directive further eliminates notice to the OAM of these offenses, preventing us from reviewing them, giving input on investigations or discipline, and preventing us from reporting to the community about them. Again, I cannot stress enough, you must read the directive. The only way we might see some of these is if harm occurs. If harm occurs to inmates or deputies, it is too late. That is not the time to address it. This will put persons in custody, deputies at risk, and the city at risk of further financial harm. With regards to suspected overdoses in the jail, suspected overdoses continue to be a significant issue within our jail, within many jails throughout the United States. There were recently, in 2025, as I indicated, eight deaths in jail. One was of natural causes, but this number is very concerning. And the OIM is looking into what if there's any relation between drugs in the jail and the deaths in jail. Those investigations usually take some time because we need to wait for autopsy reports to confirm whether or not it was an overdose. However, the number of overdoses continue or alleged overdoses where Narcan is used continue to be concerning. The OIM will follow up with the community once we are able to provide

further information.

Research into DPD education-based development proposal. In 2025 the OIM was advised that the department was going to move forward with education-based development without notifying or informing the OIM and that was The halt was put to that. And EBD fundamentally changes the current discipline system. In 2025, the OIM policy team worked predominantly on education-based discipline slash development. This included research, presentation to city council and community, and also we proposed three iterations of recommendations to the department. As of yesterday, I was notified EBD has begun. With regards to recommendations about DPD and DSD policies, a significant portion of the OIM's policy-related work is dedicated to conducting comprehensive reviews of DPD and DSD policies to identify opportunities and make recommendations. In 2025, the OIM policy team conducted thorough line-by-line reviews of 28 policies, including 17 DPD policies and 11 DSD policies. Assistance to the Denver auditor with the OIM audit. The OIM was audited by the city auditor in 2025. It was a year-long process. The policy team spent significant time and effort assisting the Denver auditor's office with their year-long audit process. which include preparation of over 500 documents, hours of meetings with the audit team, preparing our response, and creating a list of policy projects engaged in by the OIM between 2018 and 2025. That list is available in our report at Appendix E. And finally, in addition to all of that, the policy team put together and published our semiannual and annual reports. OIM outreach. As far as OIM outreach, we attended 222 meetings with community members, 103 outreach events with members of law enforcement. Our youth outreach project, which has substantially curtailed due to budget cuts, we lost our entire YOP budget last year. We'll be getting it back anytime soon. However, we still were able to hold 11 youth officer forums reaching 229 youth, trained 105 officers in adolescent development and de-escalation with youth, and OIM implicit bias training was incorporated into the DSD academy and 44 recruits participated in that training. complaint mediation program. There were 24 mediations. There was a community satisfaction rate of 60% and officer satisfaction rate of 84%. Administrative Investigation Oversight. This is oversight of investigations. Investigations returned by the OIM with recommendations for additional work. So once the investigation is done, it is sent to our office for our review and we can send it back making additional recommendations. 34% of DPD investigations were returned with recommendations. 52% of DSD cases were returned for additional investigation. And if you're interested for a list of the most common investigation recommendations, you can go to Table 1.1 for DPD and Table 1.2 for DPD in our report. Administrative discipline oversight. So this is the discipline section of monitoring. Out of the complaint specifications where the OIM recommended a sustained finding, a sustained finding was issued on 79% of the DPD specifications. and 54% of the DSD specifications. And that does not include cases that were declined. So if they were declined from the beginning, they are not included, nor cases where we may have recommended additional specifications, but they were not added by the department. Administrative discipline oversight. This is with regard to the conduct category that I was talking about earlier. Of the complaint specifications where the Department of Safety or DPD issued a sustained finding, the OIM's recommended disciplinary conduct category agreed with the DPD's final imposed disciplinary conduct category 89% of the time. DSD's final imposed disciplinary conduct category, 64% of the time. Complaints against DPD officers. There were 370 community complaints recorded in 2025. That's a 16% increase from 2024. There were 84 internal complaints recorded in 2025. That comes from within the department. That is a 24% decrease from 2024. Again, that's a 24% decrease from 2024. TPD discipline and commendations. Eight officers were terminated, seven officers retired or resigned prior to the completion of the disciplinary process, nine officers were suspended. There were 397 commendations awarded to officers. Complaints per officer by year recorded. There was one complaint per officer in 19%, two complaints at 4%, and three at 1%. And that number, 1,604, is the total number of listed law enforcement, DPD officers. Sustained complaints per officer. Identifying, going to the column in 2025, you can see that there is a decrease from previous years. 5% of total sworn officers had sustained complaints. 5% total sworn officers had sustained complaints. 95% had zero sustained complaints. Something new that we added this year is we've always had, as part of our report, a section on timeliness, but based upon a recommendation from the auditor, they wanted us to kind of break that out into the stages of discipline. So what is reflected in this slide is exactly that, how we broke down the discipline process from the moment the case is filed until it is closed. And what I am identifying here is, and this one is for DPD, is there was a total of 410 cases. Of those cases, 100 went through the disciplinary review process. 310 Cases did not go through the disciplinary review process. So that's 75% of the cases did not go through the disciplinary review process. And those cases on average, the ones that didn't go through the discipline process were completed within 52 days. That number does not square with the numbers, I'm just stating the obvious, that the department has put forth in their EBD review. I can't testify as to their methodology. I'm telling you this is what we did. 2025, from the day the complaint was filed until it was done, 75% of the cases were done in 52 days. 25% that went through the disciplinary process took approximately 282 days. What were the delays that we were able to identify? One delay we were able to identify was assignment of the case after investigation once it went to the disciplinary review process and cases sat for a really long time, up to 15 months. before I was assigned to a CRU analyst to review the investigation and make recommendations on discipline. Post-review closure also took more time and in one instance up to 10 months. So when you look at this this chart, where you're going to see kind of the backlog is the initial discipline analysis by DPD. There you're looking at 121 days. Post review closure, Department of Safety is about one, if it goes, excuse me, If it goes through the discipline process, 121 days and then once it goes to Department of Safety or for final review, 25 days. So this is, you know, I think a really helpful way to see where the bog is in the timeliness of the discipline process. Community complaints against deputies. There were 283 community inmate complaints recorded in 2025. That's a 25% increase from 2024. There are 454 internal complaints recorded in 2025. which is a 22% increase from 2024. Those are internal complaints. A breakdown of the most common specifications for your review is available at chart 3.1. TSC discipline and commendations. There was one deputy terminated, 20 deputies retired or resigned prior to the completion of the disciplinary process. 11 deputies were suspended. There were 186 commendations awarded to deputies. Complaints per deputy per year recorded. In 2025, 27% of deputies had one complaint, 13% had two complaints, 10% had three or more. Sustained complaints per deputy. This is actually sustained. One sustained complaint, 21%. Two sustained complaints, 6%. Three or more, 2%. This is the same analysis that we conducted for DPD. Here you're seeing it for DSD. So we had 600 in the first column, 622 cases total. When you move to the second column, 295 of those cases went through the disciplinary review process. the third column, 327, so 52%, did not go through the discipline review process. For the cases that did not go through the discipline review process, which is over half, the general time to handle that case from beginning to end was 41 days. With the cases that did go to disciplinary review, the average time was 302 days. I'm using the the medium. Where did we see the backlog here? If you look at the first line, it's initial investigation by Department of Safety. So if you recall, Department of Safety is in charge of the discipline unit for DSD. DPD is in charge of their own discipline unit falls under Department of Safety for DSD. and what we see is that cases that were had discipline review on average had 64 were investigated for 64 days and then the second part of that the initial discipline analysis where it moves to review for categories and discipline it was 106 days so 52% of the cases done in 41 days, but the other 48% in 302 days. We again tried to identify what were the delays, what is the cause of the significant, I'm not going to say delays, but the significant number of days in which there were these reviews. We were able to identify that some of this could be attributable to transfer between investigators, different investigators within the administrative investigation unit. But other than that, we were unable to specifically identify any other factors that would explain the timeliness. That is a summary of our annual report. Obviously it is an extensive document and I'm certainly happy to speak with all of you in more detail about that if you so choose, but I'm available for questions.

Thank you so much, Monitor Perez-Castle. I would like to welcome to the committee meeting Council President Sandoval and Council Member Alvidrez and Council Member Gonzales Gutierrez. Let me look first online. Council.

I have one question before you take this. Yes. Where is your report? I can't find it. It's on our website. On the website. Yeah. I thought it would be in legislature with all these docs. Yeah. Okay, let me.

And hopefully, I believe we sent a copy to all council members. And I believe that we have it attached on message, right, in the messenger. So I think Ann provided that, and if not, we'll make sure that gets around to her.

Yeah, and if you have any difficulty, let me know and I'll get you a copy.

Thank you for that question, Council President. Council President Pro Tem, I just want to make sure while you're online, if you have any questions, have you go first, and then we have a queue starting with Council Member Torres, Council Member Gutierrez, Council Member Cashman, and Councilwoman Alvarez. So first, Council President Pro Tem, any questions?

Thank you committee chair. I did have 1 about sustained complaints. What does sustained complaints mean? And some of the numbers I was taking notes and also looking for the report. So I'll look for that online as well.

And they are all of the different terminologies are outlined in our report. If you imagine it, I hate to use this analogy, but the easiest thing is it's a conviction. It's a finding that it occurred by a preponderance of the evidence.

Okay, thank you. And so what I'm trying to put together, and I, I need to read the full report and I think we have a meeting coming up this next week this week, I think as well to go through the report and more depth. Um, was, you know, what we're hearing from the sheriff's department is this long wait in between the time, maybe an incident occurs and then when they have their disciplinary, the time length of the disciplinary process. And that is something that you mentioned as well. Is there any work that you're doing with the sheriff's department or with, you know, with safety to further address what that timeliness is? It seems to be an issue. That's. that has come up in the numbers that you're sharing and also kind of having that immediate feedback and response from immediate supervisors.

So, unfortunately, we were not approached about addressing this issue. We were not approached about the findings in our report indicating where the hang-up was in terms of discipline. It's not with the OIM. It is with the PID unit or the Investigation and Conduct Review unit. Are there things that we can do to help? I think so. I would love to have that conversation, but we were never approached. Instead, what happened was the director of safety issued the directive 2026-0001 purporting to eliminate accountability and oversight in order to reduce the timeliness. Those things should not go hand in hand. And certainly if it was of concern, we should have been part of that conversation. That we were not consulted regarding that by the Department of Safety or the Sheriff's Department.

Okay, thank you. I appreciate that. And I don't have any other questions at this time. I'll go back in the queue. If I do.

Thank you. Council President for Tim. Council Member Torres. Councilmember Torres, I'm sorry for speaking over you. Councilmember Torres and Councilmember Gonzalez-Guterres. Thanks so much.

Thank you so much, Liz. The information, I want to make sure that I'm understanding some of the nuance. One of the things that jumped out to me in your report was something called duty to obey department rules and mayoral executive orders going from 32% to 68%. That feels like a really broad category. Can you help give me some picture of what that means? That is different from a use of force, like the other things that are more explicitly, like what's included in department rules and mayoral executive orders?

Well, what used to be included was things like, I wanted to say failure to write a report, but that has actually its own violation. I can't give you off the top of my head right now. But they were more minor violations since this is a development that started in 2023. And this development started with use of force complaints. Use of force complaints fall under the specific policy numbers 105.1. The specific rule is 336 I believe it is the number. So the reason it's important is for example use of force, there's a finding of use of force. The bottom category is D and D is a minimum of 10 days. So it goes from D through F depending on the facts of the violation. If you move that into the general category of duty to obey, it's now A through F. Now, the department has indicated that they do not intend to use duty to, although they will put it under duty to obey, they will not, they will continue to basically treat it as a D for purposes of discipline, but there's nothing in writing that says that they have to do that.

Who determines if it's use of force or duty to obey?

The department does.

Okay.

The department does. We may make recommendations, but ultimately the decisions are with the department and the directors. Okay.

I'd like to understand that duty to OPA a little bit more, especially with the jump. Percentage jump is one thing. I think the numbers jump might be interesting too for me as well in terms of actual numbers of complaints. Because if they've been moved into other categories, I don't know what that means for me to understand. And what mayoral executive orders have been violated, things like that might be helpful. Just to give me a picture of what that means. That was a significant jump for me in the report. 1 of the things that I'm trying to understand on the opposition to the opposition to the process by which you were asked for input on both departments for. Categorically, I'm not opposed to things changing, right? Nothing can be fixed in concrete when it comes to any of our departments and how they do things. But I want to understand what fundamentally needs to change in what either you've experienced in being kind of sidelined in that process or just operated around. Because it's one thing, I think, to ask council, like, advocate with us, right? We are in opposition to this. what policy needs to change like what about your ordinance or your charter needs to change um to make sure that you're not constantly facing this friction point because we can't like we can move with you i think on on certain things but it's feeling repetitive like it's a fundamental problem of the governance language so that's what i'd love to better understand is I consider you the auditor for these three departments. We've gone in and we've changed the auditor's ordinance and charter a number of times. So after we made the independent monitor's office independent in the charter, it ensures that we're looking at you as an independent agency. Even though you're not elected, I put you right up there with the auditor and the clerk and recorder. I think it's inefficient for us to constantly be advocating for deference between the Department of Safety and your office. It needs to be in language somewhere what's supposed to happen and when we're in violation of that. That's what I would like to pivot toward is understanding what language needs to change. Is it in code or is it in charter and how do we get there? So, we'd love to just kind of leave that for future conversation.

Based upon all of these changes, starting with EBD and the way it was rolled out without notification to the OIM, which we feel is in violation of the ordinance and the charter. And then the proposed change to the TASER policy and most recently this EDOS directive. We have spent a lot of time Picking apart the ordinance and looking at the ordinance to determine what needs to be changed. And I will be honest with you, I struggle to see what would make it stronger other than perhaps they shall not make any changes unless the OIM agrees. And because the ordinance already says we have to be notified and we have to have the opportunity for input. The ordinance is very clear.

If it just says that, then they can notify you and implement it the next day. Like, that's where it's not clear. So I would just push back that may feel clear to you and you have a certain expectation in your mind and what they've done doesn't feel like it's in violation of that. Exactly.

Yeah. And that's where I think the shall not implement until the OIM has made its recommendation.

Let's circle around. I feel like there's other folks that would be interested in that conversation. But that feels like really effective use of our time and our authority to help figure out this issue. So thank you so much.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much, Council Member Torres. Council Member Gonzalez-Guterres and Council Member Cashman.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you, Council Member Torres, because I think that was one of my questions is which... ordinances do you believe have been not followed through with or violated right based on some of the recent implementation of these policies right um and i think it does warrant maybe looking at it a little bit deeper to say do we need to assign timelines do we need to assign like very Specific things and I think that's something we should most definitely think about and look at I agree with you that I think in the The The intent right of of the office of the independent monitor and having this type of oversight, the intent is for these things to have proper review is for these, you know, so I, I do agree with you that these things have been violated. Now, if folks feel like they're operating within what's in language and how they want to interpret it. Um, I think that's what warrants that that conversation most definitely. um i think we all i don't know if everyone received the email yesterday from the department of safety that the um education-based uh development right i keep wanting to say discipline because that was the original um name of it that pilot was beginning um as of yesterday and that there that there was data that would be um posted up on a public-facing dashboard on their transparency page I went to that right away to see if I could find where that data would be held. And I don't know that I found the location of that. And so I'm curious if, one, you've heard about this public-facing dashboard and the data that's being posted there. If you're going to receive any supplemental data on what this pilot uncovers or what kind of outcomes they see from it. But also, if you're aware of the dashboard and if you know where to find the information, because I can't find it right now unless somebody else knows how to find it.

I did not receive it until almost the end of the day, so I haven't had an opportunity to check. I believe with regards to information in the dashboard, it may, I know, so now we're speaking about the published policy and we have yet to go through it line by line and compare it because we have made recommendations obviously regarding all iterations, well, several iterations of EBD. So I don't know, I can't say with certainty what has changed from what was sent to us to what was actually published. My concern about do we have the information that we need to review the program is that they're refusing to give us minimally intrusive information as it is and this is a pattern. This is not just with EBD but with other things. We have asked for all of the community surveys that are being used for when the Chief says that there is overwhelming community support, let me see it. I need to see it. They refuse to give it to us. We have asked for all of the training materials that they're using to determine to implement this training program. So, if an officer is going to get ABD, what kind of training is he going to get? Well, I don't know what that is. Is he going to watch a movie? Is he going to write a paper? I have no idea. I have asked for that information repeatedly and they have refused to give it to us. So my concern about putting in the EBD policy that they are going to share information with us is I can't even get them to give me the minimum. So I don't trust that they are going to follow the ordinance which says you shall turn over to the OIN any data, information, databases, anything at all that we ask for that is necessary to conduct a review of any policy. They're flat out violation of the ordinance. The ordinance cannot be any clearer and cannot be any stronger. It says shall. they have refused.

Thank you for that. I think the other kind of question when you dig into the data a little bit more and you know I'm happy to you know engage in that conversation of what it looks like to strengthen the policy when it comes to what information is provided to OIM and so I think you know we can continue that offline. But when it comes to some of the details specifically under the DSD Discipline Directive that I think that was made by the Director of Safety. At the recent public meeting that you all had last week, there was a retired deputy that said that more than 50% of deputies have a pending discipline case. And there was some understanding that The majority of those are because of body-worn camera violations. Body-worn camera has been in effect since what, 2020, 2021? 23. 23, okay. So it's been almost three years. Three years. Okay. Um, are you able to see a breakdown of kind of of those assertions? Like, are you able to see the breakdown of how many are body worn camera violations and what that looks like?

Right? And I can't say that it's mostly body worn camera. I can say a lot of it is body worn camera. Um, I can tell you that the numbers between 2023 when we started counting them, uh, dip slightly from 380 something to. I think it was down to 360 or something like that the next year, and there were 2 less in 2025. There were multiple trainings. Director Salda was not disciplining sheriff's deputies for a significant portion of time to make sure that they had all received training. But as of November 1st. 2023, the directive indicated that there would be, they would be receive a notice of improvement on a 1st violation notice of improvement is not discipline. It is simply that it is like a warning. and then if you repeatedly conduct further violations, then the penalty is supposed to escalate up to the point and it's what's called scheduled discipline. It's already set out. It doesn't go through the full discipline process, but in terms of you know, identifying that most body-worn, a lot of body-worn camera is identified when we're reviewing something else. So for example, if we're reviewing a use of force and we identify that a deputy did not turn on the camera or if the department identifies that deputy did not turn on the camera, they're supposed to note it and it is a violation. To separate, and that's mostly how it comes through to find cases where it's just body worn camera and nothing else is. That's a unique circumstance.

I'm going to wrap up because I know there's other folks in the queue. We still have this and I was just seeing if anybody from the mayor's office was here. But I think, you know, I'll say this again. I said this when chief Thomas was here presenting on. There are findings of the surveys and everything on EBD. I find it still highly concerning that we are initiating a practice that is not based in any evidence. The surveys that were sent out, we have no way of knowing that those surveys were received from individuals who live in the city and county of Denver. There was no data collection on that front. And I'm also still concerned that the full amount of data is not being shared with the Office of Independent Monitor, noting that you all handle a lot of delicate information, right? And you are discreet with that information because you are held by those same standards. And so I continue to have that concern. I will be watching how this plays out, how this pilot plays out, and would love to have regular updates on data and what that is looking like. So with that, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Council Member González-Guterres, Council Member Cashman, and Council Member Alvarez.

Thank you, Committee Chair. Yeah, Council Member Torres, I have no doubt that we need to look perhaps at refining ordinance and maybe look at the charter, but What I'm real clear on is what needs to change is what appears to be a lack of respect from the administration on the critical role that the OIM plays in the creation of public safety in our city. I've probably said 50 times in my time on council, I believe just me we do need a well-trained and well-staffed police department and sheriff's department but at the same time i believe we need a fully staffed office of the independent monitor and when when i see 60 new police officers Good on you. That's great. I don't know what the right number is for our police department. But when I see that and I see the monitor continuing to plead for a few additional staff people so they can do their work, I'm tired of the administration looking in one direction when they're trying to create public safety and underfunding the monitor's office, underfunding the Office of Children's Affairs and other areas. And that, don't bring me that same budget this year, please. With that, what is your understanding as to why the review of overdose cases was rescinded?

I don't know why. I was not consulted nor given an opinion.

Yeah, I haven't heard either. Were you advised that the EBD program was going to be announced formally yesterday?

I received an email, I believe, along with council members. But you were not... No, I was not notified as I assumed that they would move forward at some point, but that was a notification. Just going back real quick to the purpose of the overdose review is really important. And especially in light of the fact that rounds, the issue of not conducting rounds continues to go up. We need to be able to identify is this an issue that is related to rounds? Are there things being missed? Are people who are struggling and potentially at risk of losing their lives getting the attention that they need? You can't do You can't help if you can't see. You can't help if you're on your phone. You can't help if you're not conducting your rounds. These are all really input. These are not minor violations. They can have serious impact and serious consequences. Overdoses in jails across the nation have risen tremendously and we need to be very careful and look at and study how are the drugs getting into our jails? Is the department doing everything it can to make sure that anyone who's in crisis and in need is getting the attention they need as quickly as possible?

I appreciate that and You know, I continue to look at this from both sides. I'm aware the jails are way understaffed, and our deputies are working kind of crazy hours in some cases, and that's, I think, a worthy discussion that we need to get that staffing up. But regardless of that, again, the disrespect for the relationship between that the monitor plays in the public safety system has to end. So that's what I've got. Thank you, Committee Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Cashman. Council Member Alvarez.

Thank you, Committee Chair. Thank you, Monitor Castle, for all the work that you're doing. It is incredibly frustrating just to hear about it. I can't imagine living it day to day. But I did want to ask, I see Tim with the Mayor's Office, if you have a response to the respect for the charter and collaboration that seems to be missing. I'm disappointed not to see Executive Director Gardner or anyone else from the Department of Safety, but if you could speak to that, I'd appreciate it.

Good morning. Thank you, Councilwoman Alvidrez. Tim Hoffman in the mayor's office. I know that the independent monitor and our office are having ongoing discussions. I believe we have a meeting tomorrow. It's something that I don't have a response from all the safety agencies right now, but I certainly think making sure that the independent monitor is being brought into the loop in a timely fashion, has the ability to respond, is something that we're aware of, we're committed to making sure happen, along with the Department of Safety and other safety departments.

So you're planning on changing that in the future? Is that what you're saying? The way you've responded to them?

I can't comment on that right now, but it's something that we will follow up on.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that. Um, I just wanted to go back to what Councilman Cashman was talking about and, you know, it was a priority for us last year during the budget around staffing. What are your staffing levels right now?

We are currently, um. I think we're currently at 15. We have three policy PhDs, we have three, well, we have three positions available in our outreach team. Our outreach director, Nicole Taylor, recently left and joined Department of Safety. So that position has not been filled. We have five monitors, the deputy director and myself, an administrator and an intake administrator. I understand the city's Um, budget constraints, but we have continuously for the last 3 years, um, been subjected to cuts and had to do with less. We recently asked the city to provide us. I believe it's with 6 additional positions. I appreciate that and I, and, um, both for policy and monitors.

And from previous, the last year, what's the difference between last year before we made the request for additional staffing? I'm sorry. So from 2025 to 2026, is there a difference in staffing levels?

Yes, this year we were with city council's help allowed to hire a new monitor halfway through the year. So we have, we're almost finished with the interview process. We hope to hire someone, but that person probably will not be getting until the end of July.

That's all I have for the moment. I appreciate your work. Thank you. Thank you, committee chair. Thank you so much, Council Member Alvarez. And Council President Sandoval.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for taking the time. I was reading the report, and I'll have to dig deeper in it. But however I can be helpful to Council Member Torres' point, I think that... In my experience of being here for a while, we have new city attorneys who come in and they have different determinations of a policy and or a different determination of an ordinance. I've been dealing with that over the last year and I've never really Not with that, but there have been different interpretations. So one not related to safety at all, but when I first started at the city, there was a policy that if you pulled over $100,000 worth of permits, you had to update your right-of-way in front of your house so that we could get sidewalks. A few years ago, that was undone. That no longer is. So in Sloan's Lake neighborhood where I represent, there's McMansions there that have new sidewalks. And now these newer McMansions that are selling for like $2.9 million, they're not updating their sidewalks. I can't understand why one determination was implemented and then a new city attorney came in and a different determination was issued. That's something I still, after 14 years, I don't understand. But what I do understand is that when you have enabling language like shall, that has to be done, period. And so when we put, when I'm looking at ordinances and when I'm looking to update things, I always do ask our attorneys, is this enabling language? Do we have to do this? Will we have to do this? will this stand the test of time for other attorneys and interpretations come in? And that's just something I've had to learn over 14 years. I didn't, was not expected. That wasn't something I expected to have to do. But however, I can work with that to make sure that that ordinance does have enabling language so that no matter who has an interpretation of that ordinance or what city attorney is sitting or working on your side or working in the Because they all come from the same pool of city attorneys. They're just assigned, right? Like we just had Brylin. She was assigned to city council and now she's assigned to the airport. And now she has no oversight over city council. Now she's fully at the airport. And that's their client. So, however, I can help with that enabling language, just consider me a partner at the table. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much, Council President. And to Monitor Perez-Castle, thank you and your team for the work that you do. In the briefings and discussions that I've had with OIM, as well as with Denver Sheriff and Denver Department of Safety, I've made it very clear that My expectation, my thoughts as chair of this committee, is that all entities are trying their best to make sure they are meeting the expectations for the roles that they lead. Obviously, from the monitors, from your office's perspective, that communication, that transparency is not there. I've asked, just so my colleagues know, prior to, since my briefing about two weeks ago with Department of Safety, I've asked them, because I can't direct them, to provide briefings on the directive to each council member and inform, inform the president as well as myself when those briefings have occurred so that all of our questions can be answered. We schedule a time for the Department of Safety to come on August 12th. I've communicated if that information, if those briefings aren't happening and council members are still having questions on that directive, we will move to move that date forward. So we have it in July instead of the already scheduled August 12th date. I will check back with the Department of Safety to see if those briefings are happening, and if they're not, we'll have them come monitor CASEL to answer some of the questions that are extremely relevant that you have brought forward. But for right now, DOS is scheduled on August 12th to come to this committee. They most likely will be asked to come sooner so that your pressing questions are answered. I want to thank you for the report. I've spent some time rolling looking into it. Definitely look forward to providing whatever support if there are changes to charter and ordinance that are necessary to have specifics as far as timeline of your input. So thank you and your team so much for your presentation. I know we went over a little. I didn't want to slow this down because I thought it was important, but I appreciate you being here and we'll transition to our next briefing. Thank you. Thank you so much. We have a citizen oversight board. We'll take just a few moments to transition and, you know, Hernandez, I'll just turn it over to you whenever you're ready. I know Ann's going to try to make sure she can set up your presentation.

All right, in the interest of time, I'm going to jump right in. Good morning, Mr. Chair, Council Members González Gutiérrez-Sandoval, Torres Alvídez, Romero Campbell. Thank you so much for the honor of being able to present to you the Citizens Oversight Board 2025 annual report. I'm Grafina Hernandez, the newly elected chair, and I'm very pleased to be here today. I have the honor of representing the community. And so what you hear today will be from that perspective. I have the easier task in the sense that I don't have the statistics that Ms. Fettus-Castle had. and so you won't hear very many numbers, but I do have very important information to share with you. We're going to be reviewing the activities that the Citizen Oversight Board had in 2025, some of our observations regarding the public safety departments, and also our review of the Office of Independent Monitor's effectiveness. And then last but certainly not least, our recommendations. I think in the interest of time, I was going to give some additional information. Although you're very familiar with the Citizen Oversight Board, those that might be listening might not be as familiar, but I think it's important for me to just very briefly summarize our responsibilities. both by charter and ordinance, thank you. The specific legal responsibilities fall into three main groups. The first set relates to the oversight of the Office of Independent Monitor. Much of the OIM's work, as you know, is behind the scenes. And so, for purposes of the community, it's our task, the COB, to help them understand what the work is that the OIM is doing, but also help the monitor in addressing concerns that the community might have. So we assess their effectiveness and the effectiveness of the discipline process as a whole. Related to this responsibility, the COB was granted the authority to appoint with your confirmation and we also supervise the independent monitor. The second set of responsibilities is making recommendations related to public safety systems and cases and the board is specifically tasked with making recommendations on a broad range of policy issues which includes hiring and so as a result we interact with the civil service commission also the training use of force discipline and community relations we're also authorized to make specific recommendation in individual discipline cases. One example was the Monaco shooting, where a police officer fired shots while there was active traffic occurring. And so we made recommendations on that case and other cases as well. In order to make informed recommendations, the board has given access to confidential personnel records and information about ongoing internal investigations of officers and deputies. And we are also mandated to meet with the Executive Director of Safety, the Chief of Police, and the Sheriff each quarter. And most of our recommendations are available in our annual report, which I think was provided to you in advance of this meeting. The third group of responsibilities enables the COB to exercise other powers and duties and address other issues of concern to the community. And as a result, we do reach out to the community to get input on issues that are affecting them. And we also get approached by community members when they have an interaction that they feel needs to be addressed. We've highlighted some of those in our own formal recommendations. Now, just to be clear, we do not conduct the investigation, but through the OIM, we monitor the police and deputy behavior. So the COB's activities in 2025, I'm going to very quickly go through this, given the short time that we have. We had 20 meetings last year, but the majority of our time was spent on the education-based discipline slash development policy that was being proposed. And that was an interesting, journey, shall we say, because of the fact that we were not consulted to begin with. We were reacting each time that there was a change, at least according to the chief of police, changes were being made as we were trying to figure out what was in the policy. It wasn't until the summer that it was actually published and then we could then publicly react to that proposal. We did something that we have barely done, which is publish an op-ed in the Denver Post to try and inform the community and activate the community regarding this issue. We also published a formal public comment with concerns about the policy. And there were numerous forums and other meetings that were held that helped educate, as I said, but also activate the community And at least in those meetings and in those conversations, we did not find overwhelming support for the policy. In fact, once we educated the community as to its consequences, there was actual opposition. And I think you heard some of that opposition throughout the course of the year. Over the summer, we were also able to wrap up a project we'd been working on for two years. In the fall of 2023, we shared concerns about whether and how the city was complying with non-monetary terms of certain public safety settlements. These non-monetary terms might include a change in policy or require a specific investigation be implemented, maybe that new training be provided to officers. It was basically aimed at preventing a similar incident in the future. And in response to that recommendation, there was a successful legislation passed that requires the city attorney's office to share any settlements with us and thus help us maintain monitoring over those non-monetary terms. So we appreciate the help of the council on getting that passed. We also saw the Department of Public Safety implement one of the recommendations from our 2024 annual report, which was to make sure that the OIM was included and allowed to review comment on disciplinary settlements during the appeal stage. So each time you're reinforcing the authority, the support, and supporting that the OIM be able to see more and more of what is happening with discipline. And finally, we also did some internal work and did create two committees, one of which is the Community Engagement Committee and the Management Committee, both which are areas that need time and energy and also continuity. So that's an improvement on our process. All of this we did with a vacant seat at the time of the start of 2025, we had a vacant seat. Now, we unfortunately have two vacancies and a third one occurred with the passing of a colleague two weeks ago. So we have three vacancies, two of which are mayoral appointments and one that's a joint mayor council appointment. So that leaves, you know, a great deal of work that is left on the shoulders of the six of us who are on the board currently. Now, you're very familiar with this issue. I don't think I need to speak a great deal on that, except for the fact that as we lower the amount of discipline and also limit the overview that the OIM gets to do, we may risk more in this area. of settlements due to misbehavior on the part of police or sheriff's deputies. So there is a correlation, obviously. What we're trying to do with oversight is to train our police officers and deputies better, make sure that they are held accountable so that we don't see that kind of behavior in the future, and that we try to limit the consequence of liability to the city. So please know, and I know that you do know, and that's why everyone is concerned about these actions being taken to limit more and more or bypass the Office of Independent Monitor. We do have our own system in terms of effectiveness of the OIM. The COB uses a four-pronged assessment. We have a series of quantitative workload and performance measures. We do an anonymous survey of the OIM staff. ask for feedback from the Department of Safety leadership, and we also get input from our own Citizens Oversight Board members on several Office of Independent Monitor responsibilities. Plus, this year, that is 2025, we had the audit report, so that gave us a much broader view as to their work. But I want to reiterate that we are concerned, very concerned, about the fact that the staffing has not increased on the part of the OIM staff. Because we have seen that they are responsible for monitoring 52% more recorded complaints, there's 22% more investigations, and there's 39% more disciplinary cases, and yet staff remains the same level as even before the increases of the sheriff and police forces. So especially with the fact that DSD cases have increased more recently, there's more cases to review and we don't have respective staff being able to be assigned to that. And yet, we here on the Citizens Oversight Board also are requesting the OIM to be able to report on trends and patterns. So that means deeper analysis. So as we try to move the, not from the monitoring, but certainly add more to their responsibilities, then it gets very challenging to be able to do both functions and complete things on time, etc. So it has that consequence. We are looking at these concerns for the police department during the five months from October 2025 to February 2026. only one formal disciplinary order was issued to a Denver police officer. There was a huge backlog of cases. Part of it was what the OIM described earlier in her report, but our concern was that they would be rushed through now and that that delay could be used as an excuse to reduce accountability. We heard of some instances in which a police officer was claiming that because there had been so much time that had elapsed, that they should not have any further case. It should just basically be wiped clean and just they start again, not with their case, meaning that they would have another opportunity later on. I could do a whole presentation, as you know, with this EBD issue, but the main concern for the COB was that it appeared to us that the Denver Police Department leadership was not interested in real collaboration. And they did not choose to involve the COB, OIM, or our community partners. And it wasn't until there was an outcry, as again, I mentioned that we educated and mobilized. It wasn't until we received that actual written policy that we really could see what the changes were that were being contemplated. And they were far broader than we have today. So I'm happy to say that that community input was successful. We still have a lot of concerns with EBD, one of which is how we are going to evaluate this pilot and that has not been satisfactorily resolved. They're implementing without the criteria being established and they're implementing without us having an opportunity to respond to that criteria. So again, we're not having the opportunity to discuss and really collaborate on a solution. The issues with the flock cameras were very much covered by media and we saw similar dynamics with that situation where again the community was having concerns and not being necessarily heard thoroughly about those concerns. So we have this pattern continuously. that serious issues relating to public safety and not collaborating with the system that's in place. And then we have issues regarding 2024 recommendations that did not have any significant action on the use of force review board and its composition, closure letters that didn't have sufficient information, and refusal to proactively share body worn camera footage. Then we have the Sheriff's Department. Basically what we had been concerned about that was a significant decrease in disciplinary penalties issued by the Sheriff's Department. And we don't know the exact reason why there was such a precipitous decline. We also remain concerned about the severe understaffing as was mentioned earlier. This first bullet point is really, really critical to us. The fact that there seems to be a complete disregard for that collaboration. We sit ready, the COB and the Office of Independent Monitor, to discuss with the Sheriff's Department, to discuss with the Department of Safety, to discuss with the Chief of Police. And we have not received that invitation, that opportunity, that opening, if you will, to do that conversation. Instead, it's we're going to do this, and then we have to fight them to get that conversation. And frankly, it's a misnomer to talk about conversation. We are reacting, and then we're in this perceived fight when we don't have to be. There was the issue with flock as I mentioned and now more recently the taser policy use of force changes that include taser and then now the directive. I did want to make mention about the body worn camera video. As you heard, the Office of Independent Monitor does not get all use of force footage, and they only get it if there's a complaint. My concern with that is that if a person chooses not to file a complaint, then you don't get the video, even if there was something egregious that happened. or that only if there's serious bodily injury, excuse me, will they be getting that. But if there's not that or a fatality, then there could be concerns that we would have with something that happened and we don't know about it. Then with the Denver Sheriff Department, we want to know the root causes of the significant decline in discipline. Again, the understaffing trying to address that and continue to invest in that overdose prevention efforts that they have been doing. The Department of Public Safety ensured that the disciplinary process will indeed continue even if there is a change in staffing. We had that compliance officer be vacant for almost 10 months plus, and nothing was happening in the meantime. And so that created problems with a huge backlog of discipline cases. Again, we do not feel that they can use that as a factor for not imposing discipline. These last few recommendations, I reiterate that they should consider in other cities if the police department receives X amount of officers, newly hired officers, the correspondent budget for their oversight increases. So there is almost an automatic increase provided. Now, I'm not saying that's necessarily what Denver should do, but we should look at where would be the appropriate ratio of new officers, new caseload, and what could be a monitor staffing situation.

And I was going to share, COB chair, we have about seven minutes.

Okay, thank you. I'll go ahead and go to the last slide then. We have three asks for the council members. And we appreciate all that you have done thus far. Certainly we could not get here without that support. But we ask council to remain actively engaged in protecting the integrity of the framework that currently exists. We ask that the city council reinforce the expectation that ordinance mandated engagement with the citizens oversight board and the OIM occur consistently and on schedule. You were talking about what is the language that needs to happen perhaps to make that stronger. I have learned as an attorney that you can have all the laws in place, but without enforcement or consequences, you don't really have anything in effect. And finally, the board insists that significant public safety changes be brought forward for discussion and engagement before implementation. These last incidents, developments, whatever we want to call them, is very troubling. There's a pattern that has developed of disregard and almost to the point of trying to eliminate oversight. even if we have it as law. And so with that, thank you very much for allowing me the opportunity to discuss these important issues with you, and we look forward to any of your questions.

All right, thank you so much, Chair Hernandez. We have in the queue Councilmember Alvarez, and the queue is open if other councilmembers would like to join. We've got five minutes.

Thank you so much. I'll get right to it. Thank you, Rufina, for your time and to all the oversight board members for all the work that you do. You are a great partner. And I just say that even though you're not being treated like a great partner. And we value the work that you do and the input that you have. And we rely on the work that you do and the work that you provide. So I just wanted to say that. And I'm curious, with not getting the information you need ahead of time, When you are having the departments or the director of safety come to your meetings, are they showing up? Are they engaging? Are they canceling? I'd love to hear what the exchange is.

Well, actually, it's interesting that you ask that because we just had for quarter two, that is April through June, two instances in which the department of safety executive director rescheduled with us and the sheriff also. And the sheriff had asked for previous rescheduling and we had rescheduled him for this Friday and he asked again to be rescheduled. So we are not meeting with him this quarter, which means now that has postponed a very important discussion with us about these changes that have just recently been made. So we were very much looking forward to that conversation. And again, it has a perception of looking like they're avoiding these kinds of questions on the part of the community to them. Now, we have rescheduled the sheriff for July 10th. I convinced him that we needed this conversation as soon as possible, and we're even willing to create a special meeting if need be. But we've chosen to do the July 10th, and then the director of safety will be on on July 24th. So is it intentional? It's hard to sometimes give grace when it just seems to be occurring so often.

Yeah, that's disappointing to hear. I appreciate that. And then recently there's been reporting in the news about some particular leadership in DPD. Has the COB been briefed on the issues around the Megan Dodge report that's made the press?

We have not received any specifics from the department. And I'm sorry, I can't give any further information than that. Not that I can't, I don't know any further information. I appreciate that. Thank you. That's disappointing to hear as well. Thank you, Committee Chair.

Thank you, Council Member Alvarez, Council Member Gonzalez-Gutierrez.

Yeah, just real quick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Rufina. Quick question for Tim Hoffman. Sorry, Tim. You're the only guy here. You're the only person here. I'm curious where things are at with filling the vacancies for the COB, and now there are three, and I believe they all fall under the mayor. There's one joint, it sounds like, with mayor and council, but it still, I think, has to involve the mayor's office.

Yeah, Tim Hoffman with the mayor's office. The vacant positions are ones that we've been recruiting for and trying to fill for several months now. I've been talking to our boards and commissions team, Millie Barsalo, about we've had some people who have expressed interest initially and then backed out for various reasons. But it is certainly a priority and something we are actively trying to solve right now.

Okay, and you said it's only been worked on for the last couple of months, or did it begin when the vacancies occurred?

i can't speak to when it um i i can't speak to when it began but i know that this is something that we've been focused on um for all of 2026 right now okay all right thank you thank you that's all uh thank you so much look around the room see if there are additional questions

We'd like to thank the citizens oversight board and the work that you do and the ways you keep us as counsel and community informed and involved. Thank you for that. Good work. Thank you to the office of an independent monitor also providing your annual report. We will continue to follow up on all of the topics discussed today, including making sure that those appointments are happening quicker. And with that, we have. One item on consent that has not been pulled off. And with that, the meeting is adjourned. Thank you all so much.