Longmont Public Safety and Longmont Observer Work Together to Share Police Misconduct Data

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Longmont Public Safety worked in conjunction with the Longmont Observer to share police misconduct data with the public.

Longmont Observer filed an open records request to the City of Longmont on February 28, 2018, requesting records of police misconduct in Longmont for the years 2016, 2017, and the current year thus far.

Although requests of this nature typically get denied by jurisdictions in Colorado, Sergeant Garrett Boden of Longmont Public Safety and Public Safety Chief Mike Butler worked with the Longmont Observer to obtain and share data pertaining to police misconduct in Longmont.

"As you can see by the data, the Longmont Police Department does in fact hold employees accountable for their actions and we certainly do not ignore bad behavior," wrote Boden in an email to the Observer. 

According to data received from the open records request, Longmont Public Safety terminated two employees in 2016 for misconduct pertaining to failure to record and for violating the code of conduct. One employee was terminated in 2017 for misconduct related to violating the code of conduct.

2018 data is not included because, according to Boden, investigations are still underway for three incidents.

The majority of misconduct allegations in the past two years are related to 'MVA', or motor vehicle accident. Two '2nd Preventable MVA within 24-months' occurred in 2016 and 2017 respectively. One '3rd Preventable MVA within 24-months" occurred in 2017.

"When you look at the data I provided and see '2nd Preventable MVA in 24-months' that means the employee has been involved in two or more motor vehicle accidents that someone in their Chain of Command has deemed that the employee could have prevented the accident within a 24-month period," wrote Boden.

"Additionally, and as a whole, our staff literally drives tens-of-thousands miles per year and yes, we do sometimes have an accident in which we damage a patrol car. When those rare instances occur, it is fully investigated AND there are times when we issue our officers traffic tickets for their driving. I think this is yet another example of Chief Butler and our Command Staff holding all us accountable for our actions."

Public Safety Chief Mike Butler also wrote, in an email to Longmont Observer, detailing how the Longmont Public Safety Department "utilizes a citizens review panel that examines the misconduct alleged against our staff."

“Citizens who serve on this panel are selected by the City Manager and review each Professional Standards case for objectiveness, thoroughness, and completeness. Each citizen makes a recommendation to the Public Safety Chief regarding their opinion as to whether the allegations should be sustained, not sustained, exonerated or unfounded. We implemented the citizen’s panel two decades ago and it has served our community well in terms of building more transparency, trust and partnerships," wrote Butler.

"Citizens play a significant role in the development of public safety policies, procedures, strategic planning, selection of staff, the appointment of staff to more responsible positions, along with working side by side with our staff in serving our community. We invite and welcome our residents to participate in making our public safety department the most effective and efficient organization we can possibly be.”

To see the police misconduct records sent to us by Longmont Public Safety, please read the spreadsheet below.

Note: Although officer names were included in the data received, the Longmont Observer will not be disclosing the names of those individuals.