DENVER — The City of Denver is responding to 112 recommendations from a community task force looking to reimagine public safety.
The recommendations cover a wide range of issues, including mental health and addiction resources, homelessness and transformative justice.
The Task Force to Reimaging Policing and Public Safety is made up of organizations like the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, Harm Reduction Action Center, Colorado Youth Congress, The Center on Colfax and NAACP, among many others. It's focused on making sure the community has a voice in police training, preventing over-policing, and the number one recommendation — creating an office of neighborhood safety
But the city says more research is needed before creating such an office.
“I think that there may be some progress that needs to be made, maybe some tweaks that need to be done, to get the recommendations to be fully implemented,” said Melanie Kesner, a policy analyst with the task force.
The City of Denver says out of the 112 recommendations, 74% are already being implemented and only 15% were declined, some due to legal reasons.
One recommendation already being implemented is removing barriers from preventing formerly incarcerated individuals from obtaining government jobs.
“I am happy to say I know of at least two times we have been able to recruit and have people. I have one person I recruited myself with lived experience who is now a Denver sheriff's deputy,” said Denver Public Safety Director Armando Saldate in the meeting Wednesday.
For the masses of people who protested in 2020, deescalation and ending excessive use of force were their biggest concern. Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas says he is focused on new training techniques to help officers step in when another officers behavior is inappropriate.
“Not only do we not have that skill set, I know we don’t even have the culture right now to be able to do that. That is one of the reasons I searched for the ABLE concept,” Thomas said.
The Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement project (ABLE) was developed by academics at Georgetown University Law Center.
But there are many recommendations the City of Denver declined to implement, including ceasing city sanctioned homeless sweeps, ending searches in relation to petty offenses or traffic violations and prohibiting using handcuffs and pepper spray on minors.
“A lot of us are still out there marching, still working towards racial justice and equity. And those recommendations are going to be what we're going to be pushing forward,” Kesner said.