The nine shootings involving officers throughout Denver metro stretching from Lakewood to Arapahoe County since April 29 underscored police departments' differences in their levels of responses to media inquiries and in their policies governing the release of body camera footages.
With each shooting leading to a multi-agency investigation that sometimes take up to six weeks to complete, individual police departments said they juggle releasing information to the public and maintaining a fair process for those involved.
Some, including the families of individuals shot by officers, do not believe the response is clear enough. Police officials said it's a balancing act.
"We’re talking about officers shooting people in the public," said Siddhartha Rathod, a civil rights attorney and partner with Rathod Mohamedbhai LLC, a law firm that represents the families of individuals injured or killed in shootings. "That’s the public’s documents. The public has a right to those images because the public pays for law enforcement… Without that information, the public is left in the dark."
“It’s a balancing act,” said Joe Moylan, public information officer for the Aurora Police Department. “It’s providing as much information as we can while also being sensitive to the person involved and their family and treating them with the dignity and respect they deserve. Any time someone loses their life in our community, it’s a tragedy, and we need to be sensitive of that, too.”
Different departments, different policies
While state law requires that the body camera footage of each shooting is relinquished to legal teams for investigations and those that have filed a complaint of officer misconduct, there are no requirements for releasing the footage directly to the public — either through social media or the media — when a police officer shoots and injures or kills an individual.
Instead, each department follows its own set of policies.
For example, Denver Police Department Chief Ron Thomas stood near the intersection of north Broadway and Lawrence Street two Sundays ago, after three officers shot and killed a woman — later identified as 52-year-old Miguel Tapia — after allegedly coming toward them with a "hunting style" knife.
Thomas briefed the media on what occurred and, after more information was discovered and the body camera footage was looked through, held a follow-up conference on June 25 — a standard part of the department's policy.
Meanwhile, following an incident in which Joby Vigil and Jasmine Castro were killed after Castro allegedly shot at police, the Thornton Police Department did not hold a press conference, instead releasing a heavily edited body camera footage nearly a month after as part of its "community briefing" on YouTube.
The Aurora Police Department followed a similar approach after 28-year-old Jose Rodriguez-Balderrama was shot and killed by police on May 4 after he allegedly shot someone and then returned to the scene while officers were investigating.
The department also chose to release information and parts of the camera footage in a YouTube video on June 4, a month after the incident.
The decision on how these incidents are disseminated to the public, barring complaints of misconduct, lies at the discretion of departments.
A balancing act
Despite a wide range of tactics on how local departments share information to the public about shootings, officials said they all share the same commitment to transparency.
The Denver, Boulder and Aurora police departments said getting the basic information of the shooting out on social media is the first step, often coming immediately after the shooting occurred.
The departments then hold on-scene briefings conducted by a high-ranking member once the scene has been stabilized.
In the case of the Denver Police Department, the agency makes videos of the briefings available on social media, a standard process since 2016.
Denver then holds a follow-up conference with video footage around a week after the incident.
"We decided years ago that we would provide these more detailed briefings," Doug Schepman, director of communications for the Denver Police Department, said of the follow-up briefings, which are held for every critical incident the department handles, whether fatal or not.
"It’s about transparency. It’s about letting the community know what happened so they can determine for themselves whether these were appropriate actions by the officers or not," he said.
While the Boulder Police Department doesn't have the structure that Denver follows, the agency said it tries to release information and footage as quickly as possible, while also maintaining the integrity of the investigation.
"We know that people are going to have questions about these types of events. The sooner we can answer those questions, the better it is for everybody," Brannon Winn, commander of the Investigations Division, said. "We really try hard, as an agency, to answer as many of those questions as soon as we can."
Meanwhile, the Aurora Police Department now plans to release a community briefing video explaining the incident and showing parts of the body camera footage within 30 days of the incident, a new priority for the agency after Interim Chief of Police Heather Morris was sworn into office last January.
"We understand that the public is interested in learning more about these type of incidents," Moylan said. "We believe that they have the right to as much information as we can provide, given that there are always going to be active and ongoing investigations at the time."
The public pressure for the Aurora Police Department to release footage and information regarding incidents came into full view in 2019, when 23-year-old Elijah McClain died under the care of Aurora police and paramedics.
The incident led to Aurora and the Colorado Attorney General entering a consent decree in late 2021 that compelled the Aurora Police Department and Aurora Fire Rescue to review current policies, including in the area of accountability and transparency.
Meanwhile, the Thornton Police Department's policy stands apart in that it releases a heavily-edited video of an incident and only after several weeks.
Deanine Vigil, the mother of the man shot and killed by Thornton police, said the family was not contacted by the department and shown the bodycam footage until they got a lawyer involved.
"Even then, it was so edited," Vigil said. "If you're showing me the full video, this isn't the full video."
Vigil claimed the department said it couldn't show the full video because it's an ongoing investigation.
"There is a provision in the Law Enforcement Integrity Act about when a case is still under investigation, the law enforcement can delay the release up to 45 days, but the DA (district attorney) is supposed to explain the need for that in a letter that's released once the footage is released," Jeff Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, said.
Roberts noted that there are loopholes in the law that can allow a department to withhold footage without official complaints, something that needs to be "tightened up."
Investigating a 'critical incident'
Police officials said while transparency is a priority, ensuring the integrity of an ongoing investigation can make sharing information to the public difficult.
Any time there is a shooting involving an officer, a death of somebody in custody or a use of force incident, a multi-agency investigation begins, referred to as a Critical Incident Response Team. This team includes members of the district attorney's office, which investigates whether the use of force is justified.
A 2015 law made such investigations a requirement. The law's rationale is that tapping an outside agency to help guarantees that the investigation is thorough, transparent and objective.
The investigating agencies have to consider what impact releasing information at certain times will have, Boulder Police Interim Chief Stephen Redfearn said.
"When an officer is involved in a critical incident, they have very clear due process rights that they are afforded under the law and contract," he said.
Redfearn added that sometimes the district attorney will reach out and ask for some information to be withheld in order to maintain the integrity of the investigation for either party.
"With information, it’s not about protecting the officers, but protecting the investigation itself," Redfearn said. "Our goal is to make sure that we have a thorough, complete, well-done investigation."
The Thornton Police Department echoed the sentiment.
"Beyond the initial basic information we release, further information is not usually available to us until after the CIRT investigation is complete," a spokesperson told The Denver Gazette. "That is both to protect the integrity of the investigation, and many times because we don’t actually know details within that investigation."
The deaths of Elijah McClain in Aurora in 2019 and George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 brought about various changes to policies and standards in Colorado.
“I think every department lost trust in 2020,” Redfearn said. “It’s hard to get back. We’re working hard to do it, but one bad incident where the public thinks you’re not giving them the full picture is really bad."
At the state Capitol, lawmakers passed the Law Enforcement Integrity Act in 2020, mandating departments to release body camera footage within 21 days after a complaint of misconduct against an officer is filed.
Under the same law, family members and legal representatives of a deceased individual must be given the bodycam footage and they must permit its release to the public. If they do not, the footage cannot be released for 72 hours.
Some families of individuals shot and killed by police officers claimed the law hasn't been followed, and their lawyers insist that the videos should be released.
"I think it's disgusting," Vigil said of the lack of communication. "They have no empathy. To me, it just feels like they're hiding."
"Not all departments are following SB-217 to the letter of the law. Some departments continue to hide the video, continue to only release parts of the body camera footage,” said Rathod, the attorney, adding that some departments only release a small portion and define the incident through specific minutes. “If police departments have nothing to hide, they should simply release the footage. When they have something to hide, they fail to release the footage.”
"My overall impression is that, with a few notable exceptions that were taken to court, by and large, there has been general compliance with the law," said Steve Zansberg, a lawyer who helped secure public records in McClain's death.
Lawsuits
Claims of not complying with the laws have led to lawsuits against the police departments.
Yellow Scene Magazine filed a lawsuit in April against the Boulder Police Department after being charged nearly $3,000 for the bodycam footage of the shooting that left 51-year-old Jeanette Alatorre dead on Dec. 17, 2023.
The department told Yellow Scene Magazine that the footage could be seen as an invasion of privacy for those affected by its disclosure.
District Attorney Michael Dougherty's office had decided the officers were justified in their use of force. The department never released the footage.
"In any case where there's significant public interest and the discharge of weapons by peace officers, the departments should just voluntarily and preemptively make the footage available without request," Zansberg said.
Editor's note: Steve Zansberg has represented The Denver Gazette and other media organizations in open-records cases.
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