This bill expands and strengthens the requirements for reporting peace officer conduct to the Peace Officers Standards and Training (P.O.S.T.) Board database in Colorado. Key elements include:
Certified Reporting: Law enforcement agency heads must certify the accuracy of misconduct reports submitted to the P.O.S.T. Board.
Access to Records: Agencies must provide all disciplinary records upon request. If they refuse, the P.O.S.T. Board can subpoena the records, and the agency may have to cover legal costs.
Database Integrity: The P.O.S.T. Board cannot include reports from agencies that never employed the officer in question. Agencies that fail to report misconduct may face fines or loss of funding.
Officer Appeals: Peace officers can appeal their inclusion in the database, and the P.O.S.T. Board director can remove incorrect entries.
Discretionary Revocation: The P.O.S.T. Board now has the discretion, rather than a mandate, to revoke certification if an officer is found civilly liable for unlawful use of force resulting in serious injury or death.
Investigation Notifications: Officers under investigation for potential database-reportable incidents must be informed of the reporting duty and its consequences.
No Reporting Waivers: Settlements between law enforcement agencies and officers cannot include agreements to withhold misconduct reports from the database.
Personnel Records: Agencies must provide personnel records during hiring processes when a waiver is signed. Failure to comply within six days can result in fines and a one-year loss of P.O.S.T. Board funding.
Certification Retention: Individuals working in non-peace officer roles within law enforcement agencies can maintain their P.O.S.T. certification.
Permanent Judicial Security Status: Makes permanent the temporary peace officer status granted in 2024 to judicial security administrators.
Summary
Law enforcement is required to report to the peace officers
standards and training board (P.O.S.T. board) certain information related to peace officer conduct for inclusion in a searchable database. The bill requires the head of the law enforcement agency providing the report to certify the accuracy of the information in the report. The agency providing the report shall provide the P.O.S.T. board with all documents relevant to the discipline for which the officer was placed in the database upon request of the P.O.S.T. board. If a law enforcement agency refuses to provide the records, the P.O.S.T. board may subpoena the records. If the court grants the subpoena, the court shall order the law enforcement agency to pay the P.O.S.T. board's attorney fees, costs, and fees related to the subpoena. The bill prohibits the P.O.S.T. board from including information in the database if the information is received from an agency that does not employ or has not employed the subject of the information. If an agency fails to report the information, the agency is subject to a fine or loss of P.O.S.T. board funding.
A peace officer who is included in the searchable database can
appeal the officer's inclusion in the database. When a peace officer is added to the database, the P.O.S.T. board shall provide the peace officer with information about how to appeal that action. The bill requires the peace officer's disciplining law enforcement agency to provide the P.O.S.T. board with all documents relevant to the discipline for which the officer was placed in the database. If a law enforcement agency refuses to provide the records, the P.O.S.T. board may subpoena the records. If the court grants the subpoena, the court shall order the law enforcement agency to pay the P.O.S.T. board's attorney fees, costs, and fees related to the subpoena.
The bill gives the P.O.S.T. board director the authority to remove
entries from the database that are in error.
Under current law, the P.O.S.T. board shall permanently revoke a
peace officer's certification and record that information in the database if the officer is found civilly liable for the use of unlawful physical force or is found civilly liable for failure to intervene in the use of unlawful force and the incident resulted in serious bodily injury or death to another person. The bill gives the P.O.S.T. board the discretion to permanently revoke in those cases.
If a law enforcement agency is investigating a peace officer for an
incident that could result in a database report, the law enforcement agency shall inform the peace officer of the agency's duty to report that information and the consequences of the reporting.
The bill prohibits a law enforcement agency from agreeing to a
settlement with a peace officer that includes the agency agreeing to not report the information to the database.
Current law requires a law enforcement agency to provide a peace
officer's personnel records when they receive a waiver for the records to another law enforcement agency that is considering employing the peace officer. A law enforcement agency or governmental agency that submits the waiver to another agency and does not receive the records shall report that fact to the P.O.S.T. board. The P.O.S.T. board shall contact the agency, and if the agency does not provide the disclosure within 6 calendar days, the P.O.S.T. board shall not provide the agency with P.O.S.T. board funding for a period of one year and the agency may be subject to fines. The bill allows a person to maintain their P.O.S.T. certification if
they are not working as a peace officer but are working for a law enforcement agency in a non-peace-officer role.
In 2024, the general assembly provided temporary peace officer
status to administrators of judicial security. The bill makes the status permanent.
