Shootings by Denver law enforcement officers rose to their highest level in seven years in 2013, and the city’s independent police monitor questions in a new report whether how officers deal with the mentally ill is to blame.
While the Denver district attorney’s office found all 11 shootings legally justified, independent monitor Nicholas Mitchell suggested the incidents may show that officers need better training. Mitchell wrote in the report that six of those shot by Denver police or sheriff’s deputies in 2013 behaved in ways indicating mental illness.
“We believe that additional examination of these shootings as a group is warranted to determine whether additional training, tactics or tools would assist the DPD,” Mitchell wrote in his office’s annual report, released Thursday.
Denver Police Chief Robert White has ordered a review of the 2013 shootings to see whether changes are needed to department training or procedures, said Cmdr. Matthew Murray, White’s chief of staff. But Murray cautioned against reading too much into the number of shootings.
“These kinds of situations are so incredibly complex and involve so many variables that it’s difficult to point to one thing,” Murray said.
The report comes 10 years after a Denver police officer fatally shot 15-year-old Paul Childs, a developmentally disabled boy who moved toward the officer while holding a knife. Childs’ death led to a public outcry for reform, and the city responded by, among other things, hiring a mental-health professional to improve police training and creating the Office of the Independent Monitor.
Murray said a 40-hour course of “crisis-intervention training” is now standard for officers going through the department’s academy, and he said about half of Denver’s officers — including nearly three-quarters of those assigned to patrol — have the training. Murray said the department has also created an eight-hour refresher course for officers.
“We’re very proactive when it comes to this,” he said.
But Leigh Sinclair, the counselor hired to work with Denver police after the Childs shooting, said the department has lagged in its efforts in recent years. Sinclair — whose job with the department also involved getting mental-health help to people officers frequently encountered — left the department in 2008 over frustrations about its direction. The department now has a police officer performing a similar role.
Sinclair said the department’s refresher course for officers on dealing with the mentally ill is inadequate.
“There’s no infrastructure to support the police officers right now,” she said. “There’s no organized or systemic mental health or substance abuse or developmental disability person who can help these cops.”
Scott Glaser, the executive director of the Colorado affiliate of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, said Denver police have correctly recognized the importance of crisis-intervention training. The training makes it much less likely an officer will inadvertently escalate a situation with a mentally ill individual, he said.
“I think they genuinely want to do the best they can do,” Glaser said of Denver police. “But there’s always room for improvement.”
There were nine shootings by Denver police officers and two by Denver sheriff’s deputies in 2013, according to the report. Five people were killed and another five were wounded in those shootings. In one incident, no one was hit. In the remaining incident, it was unclear whether anyone was hit.
The total is the highest number of officer-involved shootings in Denver since 2006, when there were also 11. There were eight officer-involved shootings in 2012 and four in 2011. Since 1990, Denver has averaged slightly more than seven such shootings a year, although numbers prior to 2005 do not account for instances when police shot at someone but did not hit them.
In his report, Mitchell notes that many of the shootings occurred when officers were confronted by armed suspects committing serious crimes and threatening the public. But Mitchell also questioned whether some of the officer-involved shootings in 2013 could have been avoided. Although he wrote that he agrees with the department that the shootings by Denver police officers were within department policy, he added, “We believe that several of the shootings may have presented additional opportunities for de-escalation.”
Murray said officers have also been able to avoid shootings, either through proper training or through the use of so-called “less lethal” weapons, such as beanbag shotguns or Tasers. As Mitchell’s report notes, 13 officers were awarded the department’s medal of valor in 2013 and another 11 were commended for saving a life.
“Officers are certainly trying to use other means,” Murray said. “They’re trying to resolve the situation.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068, jingold@denverpost.com or twitter.com/john_ingold
