Discipline Proposal Pushed By Manager of Safety
Denver would fire most police officers who break the law, "depart from the truth" during investigations, commit sexual misconduct or improperly use force when they kill a suspect, under a draft proposal to overhaul Denver's discipline system for police.The proposal from Denver's safety manager, Al LaCabe, who oversees the Police Department, would be a big shift in how the city disciplines officers.
Officers who have committed those offenses in the past have been able to keep their jobs under the current "comparative discipline" system, which relies on past discipline decisions to guide how misconduct is handled now.
Efforts to change the department's system of comparative discipline have been proposed and failed to find consensus at least six other times. LaCabe's new proposal met immediate resistance Monday from the police union, but he remains determined to make the change.
"Discipline for police has to reflect the values and priorities of the department, which also must reflect the values and priorities of the whole external culture," LaCabe said in a recent interview.
He argues that relying on past cases to achieve consistency is flawed. Past administrations dealt with different expectations from the public, he said, and sometimes those past decisions weren't well thought out.
"The best way is to notify an officer before an event happens as to what will be the likely penalty," LaCabe said.
Marc Colin, a lawyer who handles discipline appeals for police officers, said the union's main objections deal with "presumptive termination" for officers found to have broken the law in certain categories. Currently, officers who plead guilty to certain misdemeanors keep their jobs.
Colin said officers charged with felonies are immediately suspended without pay, and many officers plead their cases down to misdemeanors to avoid the economic hardship of fighting their cases in court.
The Denver Post
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