Law enforcement officers have shot and killed 17 Coloradans this year. What warrants the use of force, what are the alternatives?

By Robert Tann

Summit Daily News (Via AP Storyshare)

The July 9 police shooting and death of 18-year-old Summit High School graduate Charlie Foster marks the 17th police shooting in Colorado this year. Officers claim Foster, who was said to be experiencing mental health issues, pointed a handgun at a Summit County Sheriff’s Office deputy and Dillon Police Department officer, who subsequently fired at and killed him.

According to a Washington Post database that has, since 2015, tracked police shootings across the United States, 2023 is currently on track to see a similar number of police shootings as last year. 

Between Jan. 1 and July 9, 2022, there were 18 fatal shootings by police in Colorado. 2022 ended with 40 police shootings in total across the state. 

That’s slightly above the annual average of 37, according to the Post’s eight years of data. In recent years, shootings in Colorado and across the country have risen, data shows.

Stacey Hervey, associate professor of criminology at Metropolitan State University of Denver, said the increase in shootings could be related to a number of factors: a growing state population, issues of mental health and violence exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and record-high gun sales in the United States since 2021. 

“Anytime you own a gun inside of a house, the reality is you’re increasing the risk of suicide and violence in that house,” said Hervey, who has worked as a victims advocate for the Boulder Police Department and spent a short time as a patrol officer before going into academia.

A Washington Post database dating back to 2015 shows there have been 296 people killed by police in Colorado as of July 9, 2023.
Nicole Miller/Summit Daily News

If 2023 ends with a similar number of shootings as 2022 — around 40 — Hervey said that would still be a limited number of incidents “compared to the amount of time law enforcement responds to situations.”

But it continues to spotlight the legality, tension and nuances around use of force policies and alternative policing practices, especially as mental health issues remain prevalent in Colorado and nationwide.

“I do think we’ve seen an increase in shootings of people who are having mental health issues,” Hervey said. “There have been some high-profile cases for sure.” 

When and why is force used? 

In situations where a weapon is involved, officers often make split-second decisions that can be fatal, Hervey said.

“All (a suspect has to do) is react and the officer has to react, and even if that takes one or two seconds, that can be too late,” Hervey said.

“Anytime you add a gun to the mix, or what’s perceived as a gun, officers often don’t have time to de-escalate that situation,” she added.

Police are “taught to stop the threat,” Hervy said, which often means shooting for center mass — a person’s upper body.

“That’s kind of the brutal side of policing,” she added.

Police are less inclined to fire at other parts of the body, such as the leg, knee or hand, for a number of reasons, according to Hervey.

Officers should be considerate of their full surroundings, which includes whoever may be behind a suspect they’re aiming at. By aiming at a smaller part of the body, such as a hand, a bullet is more likely to miss and potentially hit someone else, Hervey said.

If an officer does hit another body part, there’s also no guarantee that it will prevent a suspect from firing their weapon. And, ultimately, officers must assess the threat to their own safety in these moments, she added.

Police are not snipers, Hervey said, and she said shooting a gun out of a hand is something best left to the movies.

“It’s heartbreaking, but the officer’s main focus is, ‘Is that person going to shoot me or someone else?’” Hervey said.

Policies and legal precedent grant officers have latitude when deciding to use force, even if it turns deadly.

A landmark Supreme Court case in 1989, Graham v. Connor, decided that law enforcement has “objective reasonableness” when using excessive force.

What that means, according to Hervey, is that in the eyes of the law, officers’ actions should be based on what they know at the time of using excessive force. In essence, this insulates officers from facing repercussions for using force even if it turns deadly, Hervey said.

According to a section on use of force policies from the Dillon Police Department policy manual, “officers are entrusted to use well-reasoned discretion in determining the appropriate use of force in each incident.”

The policy continues: “While the ultimate objective of every law enforcement encounter is to avoid or minimize injury, nothing in this policy requires an officer to retreat or be exposed to possible physical injury before applying reasonable force.”

The manual goes on to state that officers should apply “nonviolent means, when possible, and may use physical force only if nonviolent means would be ineffective.” 

Use of deadly force is justified, the manual states, if an officer needs to “protect him/herself or others from what he/she reasonably believes is an imminent threat of death or serious bodily injury.”

A copy of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office’s use of force policies shows guidelines that are identical word-for-word to the Dillon department’s manual.

What alternate forms of response exist?

Advocates for police reform have increasingly called for non-violent responses from law enforcement even in situations where officers face potential risk.

“In some of those instances, there has to be some level of creativity in resources while exercising safety for the community,” said Alex Landau, cofounder of the Denver Justice Project, a criminal justice and police reform organization. “It’s about safety, yes, but it’s also about safety for this individual in a time of crisis.”

Landau, who is Black, was spurred to action after being beaten by Denver police officers following an alleged illegal left turn when he was 19. When it comes to police shootings, Landau said “the further militarization of law enforcement in this country will further exacerbate this problem.”

It’s why Landau helped lead the effort to launch Denver’s Support Team Assisted Response program, or STAR, in 2020. For emergencies related to mental health, depression, poverty, homelessness and substance use issues, the program dispatches paramedics and behavioral health clinicians rather than law enforcement.

Landau, who now sits on an advisory board for the program, said these professionals are more equipped to de-escalate situations and connect a person with resources. 

“We cannot as a community turn to an entity that is already spread so incredibly thin,” Landau said of police departments. “An officer should not be able to run the show at the scene of a mental health crisis. An officer should be there as a form of backup if particularly necessary.”

This model, known as a co-responder program, is used in Denver and in other communities throughout Colorado. The program pairs law enforcement with a clinician when responding to a mental health-related call.

“If police are going to be there, they can’t be alone. They need to have experts in the field,” Landau said.

Summit County’s co-responder program, called the System-wide Mental Assessment Response Team, or SMART, was launched in January 2020 and operates under the Sheriff’s Office. The program’s goal, according to a description on its website, is to “de-escalate situations that have historically resulted in arrest or hospitalization and to assess whether the person should be referred for local treatment services or a higher level of care.”

It pairs an armed, plain-clothed law enforcement officer with a behavioral health specialist when responding to mental health-related police calls. A case manager then follows up with the client, aiming to connect them with community resources.

Hervey said this model has been popularized across the state in recent years as issues of mental health, homelessness and drug use continue to strain police departments’ abilities to respond to such issues.

“For 99% of calls, I think that’s a great bonus,” Hervey said.

But she added: “At the point of a gun call, the officer’s training is going to take over and decide whether they’re going to be part of the call.”

What crisis intervention training do officers have? 

Colorado law enforcement offices have widely undertaken crisis intervention training to better prepare and teach officers how to de-escalate certain situations, Hervey said. 

The training, which involves speakers with lived-experiences of mental health crises as well as acted-out scenarios for officers, is more comprehensive than anything to come before it, Hervey said. 

No mention of “critical intervention training” appears in either policies for the Summit County Sheriff’s Office or the Dillon Police Department. 

The Dillon manual, however, lists “use of force policies” as a mandated training for “all certified employees.” The Sheriff’s Office policy states the division commander shall work with the lieutenant to ensure legal and facility training mandates are met, which includes use of force. 

In response to a list of questions from Summit Daily regarding critical intervention and de-escalation training at the sheriff’s office, Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons stated in an email that the multi-agency investigation following the July 9 shooting means “we cannot provide any additional information at this time.

“I want to assure the community that I remain committed to building and maintaining trust through transparency. Once the investigations are completed, I will be more than willing to provide relevant information at the appropriate time,” FitzSimons stated. “We continue to keep those involved in this incident in our thoughts.”

As of this article’s publication, the Dillon Police Department has not responded to the same list of questions. 

“I think every department needs to have critical intervention training or some type of training,” Hervey said, adding the same is true for mental health counseling following a deadly incident. 

According to Dillon police policies, officers who have been involved in a shooting or deadly use of force “shall be provided ongoing supportive mental health services, including confidential followup by a qualified mental health professional,” either in-person or through telehealth services.

“I think any good department is going to have some mental health for officers, because we know that officers have a very high suicide rate,” Hervey added. “Especially after a critical incident, it’s very traumatic for the officer too, and I think people forget that.”

While mental health investments in policing can help officers become “more empathetic to people who are suffering a mental health crisis,” Hervey said, there should also be other resources to turn to outside of law enforcement. 

Experts have highlighted Colorado as a state where the mental health care system is “failing.” A lack of in-patient beds and barriers to accessing care have pushed many in crisis into jails or emergency rooms.

“911 in this country is supposed to be a last resort to get police to come. And so many families are having to rely on 911 for the mental health of their child and their loved one because they can’t get help from anyone else,” Hervey said. “That’s a really sad statement on the state of mental health in our country.”