Community Corner is local contributions from residents and experts in their fields.

See Yellow Scene Magazine’s story released 1/29/2023: Boulder City Council to Vote on Police Oversight Committee Replacement, with Pro-Police Advocacy Groups Playing a Large Role

Police Oversight Panel City Leadership Interference

Jan. 17, 2023

Dear Boulder City Council Members,

Your vote to approve the potential Police Oversight Panel members recommended from the Selection Panel is just a couple days away. As I wrote recently, the Selection Panel’s deliberations, per BRC § 2-11-6(a)(5), are confidential. The law you passed be damned, you instructed the Selection Panel to review all the recommended panelists and to assure that proper code criteria was applied, in order to determine if the recommended panelists met the criterion. And this was to be done with guidance from the City Attorney’s Office. The Selection Panel, you instructed, were to provide you with explanations or certifications explaining the steps that were taken, in writing.

Explanations of the steps that the Selection Panel took, provided to you in writing, was a demand for them to share their confidential deliberations. Full stop.

Further, the Selection Panel was sent a plethora of communications challenging Lisa Sweeney-Miran. The emails came from people that NAACP Boulder County Branch Vice President and Selection Panel Member Jude landsman, quoted in the Daily Camera on Sunday, opined on as follows: “I thought it was very shortsighted to send (the public comments) out to the selection committee when the comments were also against oversight [of the Boulder Police Department] in general.”

Talk about bias—you know, the thing that Council Members were ostensibly, and unlawfully, attempting to ensure was appropriately screened from the applicants put forward by the Selection Panel. There is a bias here, and it is in giving an oversized voice to people so virulently pro-police as to be against any oversight at all. Providing such pro cop propaganda—or copaganda—to the Selection Panel as part of this pugnacious endeavor and calling it, as Council Member Benjamin did, “due diligence,” is anything but.

How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye?  You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

As this process returns to Council on Thursday, we are warned further delay on a vote will impede the Police Oversight Panel, as shared in Boulder Beat News: “‘We will lose quorum if we do not have those new panelists seated,’ [Police Oversight Panel Co-Chair Daniel] Leonard said.”

While I expect the interference will end in this process because you will likely call a vote this week, the interference by city staff continues. In the same Boulder Beat News article, Chief Herold is quoted, stating, “The panel’s role is not to look at policing in a systemic way, . . . . The panel’s role is to look at specific facts and circumstances and then recommend corrective action or discipline; that is it.”

Like Council and city staff who ignored that part in the ordinance that states “[s]election panel deliberations shall be confidential,” Chief Herold seems to have skimmed over or simply ignored the ordinance. In the Powers and Duties section of the code, B.R.C. § 2-11-7(e) states:

The police oversight panel shall have access to the Boulder Police Department’s policies and any data captured or maintained by the department to facilitate the panel’s analysis and understanding of department operations. The panel may direct the monitor to conduct specific analyses of department data, policies, or practices.

Thus, the Police Oversight Panel has access to BPD data and may direct the Police Monitor to analyze it. If that isn’t “look[ing] at policing in a systemic way,” someone please explain to me what is. And if it is (hint, it is), someone needs to inform Chief Herold. Because the ordinance is silent regarding what to do with the analysis once done, should we understand that to mean the analysis should be hidden from the public and not used to improve the policies and practices of the Boulder Police Department?

In keeping with such understanding, I will take your silence in not responding as agreement with Chief Herold, and as an affirmation that such efforts and analysis at the direction of Police Oversight Panel Members should never see the light of day. They should not help us avoid another Officer Smyly type interaction that motivated the creation of the Police Oversight Panel by “look[ing] at policing in a systemic way.” And they certainly should just let Chief Herold and the City Attorney inform them of their powers and duties, rather than refer to the ordinance itself, lest they get too uppity and actually effect some true reforms.

Sincerely,
Darren O’Connor, Esq.
NAACP Boulder County Branch Criminal Justice Committee Chair
He/him/his

Police Oversight Panel Selection Committee Deliberations are Confidential

Jan. 18, 2023

Dear Boulder Council Members, City Manager Rivera-Vandermyde, Police Oversight Panel Members, and members of the press,

Last week, Council, according to the Daily Camera, demanded that the POP Selection Committee provide “written explanations of the steps it took when choosing new members before the item is brought back before the council in January.”

Perhaps Council was unaware of the ordinance’s proscription against such a demand. B.R.C.

• 2-11-6(5) states that “Selection panel deliberations shall be confidential.” The steps taken in choosing the slate of POP members certainly counts as the selection panel’s “deliberations.”

Apparently, while Council members searched for something in the ordinance that could be used against one of the proposed new panel members, they ignored this legal requirement that the selection panel’s work be confidential. This was wrong, and the demand of the selection panel to disclose those confidential deliberations is thus illegal. Though a summary of the selection panel’s reason for selecting each applicant is also part of the ordinance, one assumes, under the leadership of Aimee Kane and the interim police monitor, this much was done. Demands that intrude into the private communications of the selection panel are not fair game to interrogate the selection panel.

I therefore write to demand that Council’s demand be withdrawn, and that the selection panel’s recommended slate be voted on by Council, pursuant to B.R.C. § 2-11-6(15):

A motion to approve the proposed candidates shall be placed on the council’s consent agenda. council members may choose to exercise the call-up option to discuss a proposed candidate’s appointment. Council will approve or reject the appointments by majority vote.

Council should have had only the discretion to discuss any particular candidate’s appointment and then voted. Instead Council chose to make a demand not within its authority due to the prohibition of what it demanded, as discussed above.

Move this to a vote, and let the people do their work of community oversight of policing. It’s the right, and legally required, thing to do.

Sincerely,
Darren O’Connor, Esq.
NAACP Boulder County Branch Criminal Justice Committee Chair
He/him/his

The post Attorney Darren O’Connor addresses the Boulder City Council regarding the Police Oversight Panel Appointments appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The cold snap in mid-February revealed the gaping holes in Boulder’s homeless services safety net, and the death of Ryan Stoops made the consequences of such gaps very clear. City Council Member Rachel Friend pushed very quickly, via an email to the Hotline, asking that the 30 day limit on Severe Weather Shelter be addressed so that people who had already maxed out would “have the option to come inside from potentially lethal cold.”

After hearing from several concerned friends, I began a petition on the issue, with each person that signed generating an email to Council, and signers of the petition asked to call six of the council members.

Between the community members signing and acting rapidly, and the actions of Council Member Friend, the policy was loosened the same day to increase the maximum limit from 30 to 60, setting the City up for a foreseeable emergency in the near future.

This all followed a January 19th city council meeting at which topics such as “mandatory minimum sentences for homeless campers” were considered. Though this proposal found fertile ground only in the barren wasteland that is Council Member Wallach’s position on all things homeless, Council decided that it was a great idea to tell Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold to continue camping ban enforcement—despite no chance those who receive tickets will go to jail because the Boulder County Jail will not take anyone arrested on non-violent municipal violations.

A memo in the agenda packet, authored by the prosecution division of the city attorney, had also pointed to “formidable barriers to using Boulder’s camping law to reduce street homelessness.” The memo warranted praise from the NAACP Boulder County Branch, which wrote a ten page letter to Council on the issue, and stated that, “[w]e commend the authors for a very neutral presentation of a wealth of information clearly informed through a great deal of compassion in addressing this issue.”

City attorney Chris Reynolds, who is charged with prosecuting camping ban citations, had the additional task of presenting the benefit of mandatory minimum sentences in jail: access to mental health and addiction programming. Council members, perhaps shocked at the idea of having to force people into jail to access such programming, also shocked me in that they discussed the idea of providing such services without going to jail.

Eureka!

For now, camping citations are hardly worth the paper they are written on, yet that was Boulder’s best, if most stale and useless, idea moving forward to address concerns about people camping outside in the winter during a pandemic—and perhaps hiring more cops and increasing the bloated policing budget.

Yet, it was nice to see a council shocked by staff’s recommendation of mandatory jail minimums of 45 days or more for camping violations step back from the precipice and think about alternatives to jail.

The post Council Steps Back from the Brink appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

As reported in May 2019, “black people are twice as likely to be stopped by Boulder police and once stopped, are twice as likely to be arrested.” At a BPD event to present this data, a Black friend shared that an elderly woman expressed to her and an officer, also at the table, that she calls the police all the time on suspicious people.

These two things are related. A call about a suspicious person, or a homeless person, along with other calls, leads BPD officers to be 75% reactive, according to BPD data analyst Beth Christtenson. That is, BPD officers spend 75% of their time responding to community calls. “This leaves very little time for proactive policing,” she says.

Christenson has shared that a better percentage would be 50%. And we can get there.

There is no doubt that in Boulder, with so few Black people, a Black person walking through many neighborhoods may be deemed suspicious. But police should have more than a claim of a person acting suspicious before responding.

Police discretion refers to law enforcement officials’ ability to use their own judgment, such as whether to investigate if a crime has happened or if a person should be detained for questioning. Such discretion also-importantly-allows officers to decline an investigation or a response to a call about a suspicious person.

Such discretion CAN be used to say no to a caller seeking police if there is no rational reason to send an officer. The dispatcher who receives such a call, however, must, at this time, get a supervisor’s agreement.

How much easier, however, to simply send an officer, and subject untold innocent community members to a police stop.

On a ride-along with a BPD officer, I was able to observe such a stop of two people experiencing homelessness on the Boulder bike path. The caller provided no details beyond literally what is in that previous sentence. During the officer’s interaction with the two men, I observed the officer get in a defensive position and place his hand on his gun as one of the men reached into his backpack.

The unhoused gentleman being questioned may never have known the officer was contemplating his own safety and preparing to draw his weapon. But it should never have happened, and would not have happened if the dispatcher had required more of the original caller and used discretion to decline sending an officer to investigate.

So far, my experience has been that BPD officials do not see using their discretion in this way as something worth considering. One has to wonder why.

Darren O’Connor is an attorney in Boulder practicing in the areas of eviction defense, family law, criminal defense, and civil rights. He can be reached at DOLawLLC@gmail.com.

The post Boulder Police Department should kill two birds with one stone by applying police discretion to NOT respond to calls that do not warrant a police response | Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Darren O’Connor is an attorney in Boulder practicing in the areas of eviction defense, family law, criminal defense, and civil rights. He can be reached at DOLawLLC@gmail.com.

The post Promises, Policy, and President 46 | Community Corner Nov. 2020 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Metro Denver Homeless Initiative, a body responsible for distributing federal funds to address homelessness in the seven-county Denver Metro region, has put out a shocking report under the banal title, “State of Homelessness 2020 Report.”

Though the annual Point In Time (PIT) count for 2020 determined there were 6,104 people experiencing homelessness in the region, the count in the HMIS data system that tracks unique individuals who seek aid was 31,207: a factor of more than 5 times greater.

Despite a common belief that addiction and bad choices are the cause of homelessness, the report shares that “the top reasons of homelessness in the region are high housing costs, a lost job or inability to find work, and relationship or family break up . . . .” The overview section is brief yet rich:

“This report highlights two overarching trends in homelessness. First, inherent in homelessness, is the racial inequity that must be addressed. Second, the only long-term solution to homelessness is housing. The region faces a significant affordable housing crisis, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic’s economic impact.”

This year’s Boulder PIT count showed Black people are 12 time more represented in the County’s unhoused population compared to the general population. For the region, indigenous people are 7 times overrepresented. Combined with the fact that, per the report, “the leading cause of homelessness, not just in this region but around the country, is a lack of affordable housing,” gentrification, failure to invest in affordable housing, inequitable (read racist) lending policies, and the wealthy using real-estate as an investment vehicle, all lead to the crisis in homelessness.

For example, a recent study found that redlining, “a discriminatory practice that puts services (financial and otherwise) out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity,” continues despite supposed efforts to end the practice. “Fifty years after the federal Fair Housing Act banned racial discrimination in lending, African Americans and Latinos continue to be routinely denied conventional mortgage loans at rates far higher than their white counterparts.”

Despite these systemic and racist causes of homelessness, people like Boulder Housing and Human Services Director Kurt Firnhaber continue to argue that providing services just attracts more homeless people – even though the count of people experiencing homelessness in Boulder has increased concurrent with a service bed count decrease of 70%. Firnhaber, before a person recently froze to death in the September snow storm, said “[We need to be] honest with them about what their options are [and] say, ‘We’ll have 180 beds in our community this winter [so] you’re likely not going to have a place to stay . . .”

Turns out racism is at work not only at mortgage lenders, but in local government too. 

Darren O’Connor is an attorney in Boulder practicing in the areas of eviction defense, family law, criminal defense, and civil rights. He can be reached at DOLawLLC@gmail.com.

The post Racism, Redlining, And Recessions: Vastly Greater Numbers Of People Homeless Than Previously Reported, With BIPOC Folks Far More Likely To Suffer appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Who could have believed that Trump and his administration would do better at preventing Colorado evictions than our own Democratic Governor and Legislators in Colorado? It is now true.

Today, September 4, 2020, as I write this, the Center for Disease Control has published into the Federal Register its notice of Agency Order: “Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions To Prevent the Further Spread of COVID-19.” The order is not a panacea, requiring a declaration under penalty of perjury that a tenant meets five criteria. Some of the criteria may be difficult to prove in court, such as that “eviction would likely render the individual homeless—or force the individual to move into and live in close quarters in a new congregate or shared living setting—because the individual has no other available housing options.” At the very least, a landlord can still file for eviction with the well-founded hope that many tenants will not show up to defend themselves based on the CDC order.

The order does not relieve tenants of the obligation to pay rent, but for many, failure to pay will not be sufficient to evict.

Thus, from now until December 31st, this order may protect far more Colorado tenants than our state government has. Landlords, who may also face inability to pay their own mortgage and are unprotected under the order, are understandably likely to cry foul.

To address such imbalance in protections, our Legislators in Colorado could have passed an emergency law protecting both landlords with mortgages and tenants, backed by a 1934 Supreme Court ruling in Blaisdell that is still in effect today (https://bit.ly/3i13H5x). In fact I shared a memo (see https://bit.ly/3btDcD0) with multiple Colorado Legislators providing a basis to do just that, but the Democratically controlled Legislature and our Governor didn’t have the stomach to go up against the landlord lobby. Governor Polis even went so far as to “repeatedly [state] that he does not have the authority to interfere with contracts,” apparently having never read Blaisdell or consulted an attorney.

If you are facing eviction, you may be able to seek rental assistance from the State at https://cdola.colorado.gov/rental-assistance. You can also seek free legal assistance from volunteer attorneys with the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Project: https://cedproject.org/.

Here is some free legal advice: if you get a “SUMMONS (UNLAWFUL) DETAINER,” show up in court and fight it. The law is on your side. 

The post Feds Protect Against Colorado Evictions While Governor Sleeps At The Wheel | Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder Police Officer Waylon Lolotai is alleged to have an Instagram account, @tacticaltoa, on which he speaks positively about police brutality and violent “use of force Fridays”. This includes his (alleged) comments about an officer punching a man another officer already has in a chokehold: “Atta girl, doing work on that suspect, dropping hammers.” In response to a commenter calling this excessive force, Lolotai (allegedly) writes, “it made me happy that she was dropping bombs on his stupid face.”

Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr has referred to Lolotai as “an excellent officer who does a great job.” This “excellent officer” is now on paid administrative leave. Lolotai’s alleged Instagram account came to the attention of Boulder Police via a video on the SAFE: Safe Access For Everyone Facebook page.

Since he was hired in 2016, he has brutally assaulted two women, as well as a Black man, Sammie Lawrence IV, who clearly and repeatedly shared that he was disabled. One of the women, Kelly Clark, was unsuccessful in suing Lolotai and the City of Boulder.

That was then, this is now.

The killing of George Floyd has driven our nation to the streets. Locally, Aurora Police stopped a young Black violinist, Elijah McClain, who was walking home from the store; that stop escalated into brutal physical restraint, involuntary drugging, and death. Protests have demanded an end to police violence.

The Aurora officers who used excessive and unnecessary use of force against McClain were not charged with wrongdoing for the actions that led to his death. But like Lolotai, those officer’s showed a disregard for excessive use of force, sharing pictures grinning and placing an officer in a mock-chokehold at a memorial for McClain. Like those officers, it is not Lolotai’s blatant and repeated violent use of force that put his job at risk, but his callous disregard shared publicly. 

It is thus all too apparent that police beating people on the job is much more protected than police sharing their enthusiasm and lack of concern for the consequences of beating people on the job.

Perhaps the new Chief of Police, Maris Herold, will see Lolotai fired, rather than defended—as the BPD did under former Chief Testa.

An interesting end to this story comes by way of the U.S. mail. To my private residence, at my unlisted address, one day after learning of Lolotai’s paid administrative leave, I received a postcard: “Aloha From HawaiI.” On the back it read:

Dear Dare-bear, Thank you for the paid vacay! XOXO, The Ls.

I’ll leave it to our readers to decide how likely this is to be a gloating or threatening message. Luckily I have long taught my daughter to keep the door locked and don’t open it for strangers. It might be a cop.

The post Community Corner – Boulder PD’s Social Media Hypocrisy appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post Fight or Flight: I did not hear you. Don’t shoot. appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder Police Officer Waylon Lolotai is alleged to have an Instagram account, @tacticaltoa, on which he frequently speaks positively about police brutal and violent use of force. This includes his (alleged) comments about an officer punching a man another officer already has in a chokehold: “Atta girl, doing work on that suspect, dropping hammers.” In response to a commenter calling this excessive force, Lolotai (allegedly) writes, “it made me happy that she was dropping bombs on his stupid face.”

Screenshot, IG @TacticalToa

Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr has referred to Lolotai as “an excellent officer who does a great job,”but as a result of what looks to be Lolotai’s social media commentary, this “excellent officer” is now on paid administrative leave. Lolotai’s alleged Instagram account, on which “Use of Force Fridays” posts promote violent police action towards suspects, came to the attention of Boulder Police via a video on the SAFE: Safe Access For Everyone Facebook page.

Yellow Scene readers may recognize Lolotai’s name, as I have written about Boulder hiring him while he was part of an active investigation for excessive use of force as a deputy at the Denver jail. Since he was hired in 2016, he has brutally assaulted two women fully half his size, as well as a Black man, Sammie Lawrence IV, who clearly and repeatedly shared that he was disabled, just before Lolotai tackled and arrested him for, in part, not putting down his walking aid. One of the women, Kelly Clark, was unsuccessful in suing Lolotai and the City of Boulder, because, in part, the judge did not feel Lolotai’s shoving her so hard she flew through the air, after only an instants warning to step away from him, met the standard of shocking the conscience.

But that was then, and this is now.

The vicious police killing of George Floyd has driven our nation to the streets. Locally, Aurora Police Department stopped a young Black violinist, Elijah McClain, who was walking home from the store; that stop quickly escalated into brutal physical restraint, involuntary drugging, and death. Protesters have been persistent in calling for an end to police violence against Black people, even in the face of President Trump sending provocative federal agents who are understood to have escalated tensions in Portland, Oregon, before the federal officers left (and protests reportedly quickly returned to something approaching peaceful).

The Aurora officers who used what so many have called excessive and unnecessary use of force against McClain have so far been exonerated of any wrongdoing for their actions that led to his death. But like Lolotai, those officer’s showed a disregard for excessive use of force, sharing pictures of themselves grinning and placing an officer in a mock-chokehold at a memorial erected for McClain (three of those officers were subsequently fired). Like those officers, it is not Lolotai’s blatant and repeated violent use of force that has put his job at risk, but his callous disregard for such use of force shared publicly. 

It is thus all too apparent that police beating people on the job is much more protected than police sharing their enthusiasm and lack of concern for the consequences of beating people on the job, behavior that outs the hypocrisy of departmental standards and imperils public perception.

It remains to be seen whether Boulder’s City Attorney continues to defend officer Lolotai. Perhaps the new Chief of Police, Maris Herold, will see Lolotai fired, rather than defended—as the Boulder Police Department did under former Chief Testa.

An interesting end to this story comes by way of the U.S. mail. To my private residence, at my unlisted address, one day after learning of Lolotai’s paid administrative leave, I received a postcard: “Aloha From HawaiI.” On the back it read:

Dear Dare-bear, 

Thank you for the paid vacay! XOXO, The Ls.

Image courtesy the author

No one I know is on vacation in Hawaii, and almost no-one knows my address. I’ll leave it to our readers to decide how likely this was to be a gloating or threatening message to me for publicly and privately calling out this piece of work that should never have been given a badge. Luckily I have long taught my daughter to keep the door locked and don’t open it for strangers.

It might be a cop.

Darren O’Connor is Regional Vice President of the National Lawyers Guild SW Region and a practicing attorney in the areas of eviction defense, family law, criminal defense, and civil rights. He is the criminal justice committee chair for the NAACP Boulder County Branch. He can be reached at DOLawLLC@gmail.com

The post Officer Lolotai in Boulder in More Trouble for Talking About Beating People Than Beating People | Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Boulder city staff are committed to reducing the number of beds available at shelter services, and they are not going to let a little thing like a forthcoming wave of evictions resulting from the COVID-19 Pandemic affect their decisions. To back their play, Housing and Human Services (HHS) staff produced a report that one member of the Housing Advisory Board (HAB) stated should, respectfully, be thrown in the trash.

But there is little to respect about staff presenting flawed data. Boulder’s HAB met jointly with the Human Relations Commission (HRC) to review the HHS report and pointed to bias in it. A Doctor of Anthropology from Seattle was so frustrated upon seeing the report that he quickly responded with roughly 40 comments pointing to flaws in HHS’s data and conclusions.

HAB and HRC, both tasked in Boulder’s Municipal Code with making recommendations to City Council to advise on long and short term priorities, did exactly that after reviewing the report, sending a list of recommendations that included piloting sanctioned camps, safe parking spaces, and tiny home villages. They recommended creating an oversight committee to set homeless policy made up of at least 50% people who have lived experience of homelessness.They recommended working with the faith community to create more shelter space, as has been done successfully in the past.

This review and the recommendations made were done just ahead of City Council’s study session on homelessness that took place on July 14, 2020. HHS staff, likely smarting from the strong and warranted critique of their report, failed to include the HAB/HRC recommendations in the agenda packet Council received, thus undermining the very purpose of the two groups, as defined in the City’s laws. 

HHS then carried on weaponizing the truism that “housing cures homelessness,” asserting basically that any money spent on increasing shelter beds—beds their policies have reduced by nearly 70% since 2017—takes away from funds that could go to housing, and therefore replacing service beds should not be done. A majority of Council approved this. This, while it’s been reported that in this era of shrinking budgets, the police will get a bomb truck and electronics to assist them in issuing tickets, to the tune of half a million dollars.

Recent research predicts roughly 450,000 Coloradans will soon face eviction, and Boulder will surely see a portion of those. Many will become homeless. Yet HHS staff and Council decided that less beds in the safety net are a good idea. 

Come fall, when the snow is flying and a flood of newly homeless community members are left out in the cold, the willful negligence of HHS, and the Council who listened to their advice, will be plainly evident

Darren O’Connor is an attorney in Boulder practicing in the areas of eviction defense, family law, criminal defense, and civil rights. He can be reached at DOLawLLC@gmail.com 

The post Plainly Evident: No Room at the Inn | Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo by Danny Trevino

George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Elijah McClain.

Their deaths at the hands of police are the latest to shock the collective conscience of our country, and their names have been lifted at protests nationally, internationally, and right here in Colorado. The protests have been sustained and intense, despite severe police response, and protests in many places, including Colorado, have gotten the goods.

In Minneapolis, where officers restrained Mr. Floyd while another officer choked him until he died, the city council is moving forward with a plan to dismantle the police department. City councilman Jeremiah Ellison says of this effort, “We are going to dramatically rethink how we approach public safety and emergency response.” And there is precedent to show such efforts to defund, reorganize, and reprioritize work, such as in Camden, New Jersey, with the result that “complaints over excessive police force . . . have dropped 95% since 2014.”

Colorado legislators returning to the Capitol amid lowered COVID-19 restrictions and ongoing protests did so about the same time that Tenth Circuit District Court’s Judge Jackson issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against police in Colorado in response to a complaint of Denver police use of excessive force. 

The order reads in part that “the Court temporarily enjoins the Denver Police Department . . . from using chemical weapons or projectiles unless an on-scene supervisor . . . specifically authorizes such use of force in response to specific acts of violence or destruction of property that the command officer has personally witnessed.” In support of the order in the face of property damage that had occurred during Denver protests, Judge Jackson also wrote that “property damage is a small price to pay for constitutional rights—especially the constitutional right of the public to speak against widespread injustice. If a store’s windows must be broken to prevent a protestor’s facial bones from being broken or eye being permanently damaged, that is more than a fair trade.”

Colorado legislators made quick work of codifying Judge Jackson’s TRO as part of Senate Bill 20-217, the “Enhance Law Enforcement Integrity” Act (“the Act”). Legislators went further, though, requiring e.g., that every police stop be documented and a reason for the stop be recorded. It requires police to acquire and use body cameras by July 1, 2023, and failure to activate the camera leads to “permissive inference in any investigation or legal proceeding . . . that the missing footage would have reflected misconduct by the peace officer.” 

Perhaps the farthest reaching change, and a huge win for the people, is law enforcement cannot use qualified immunity as a defense in a lawsuit alleging violation of rights under the Colorado Bill of Rights, including excessive use of force complaints.

Protest in Colorado, has gotten the goods.

The post Colorado Protests Get The Goods appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The pandemic is providing a lens through which inequity is plainly visible for all to see. Essential workers earning survival wages are dying so we can go to the supermarket, e.g., and Governor Polis has made highly visible public proclamations that attempt to balance safety with the need to pretend capitalism is a worthy economic system.

To wit, after much pushing, the Governor ordered a moratorium on evictions that will have expired by the time you read this. Later, on May 15th, Governor Polis issued Executive Order D 2020 065, which, inter alia, addresses the challenges of collecting signatures for citizen-initiated ballot initiatives by “[a]uthoriz[ing] registered electors to sign petitions by a means that does not require a petition circulator, including but not limited to providing electronic mail and mail-in options . . . .” Within days, a lawsuit was filed that shines a light on who does and doesn’t benefit from access to the courts.

While there are 6,415 people for every legal aid attorney providing pro bono legal assistance, those with money can pursue legal redress for whatever ails them.

By way of example, Daniel Ritchie, who runs an “organization devoted to investing in and promoting a pro-business environment through the political process” asserts that, as a result of the Governor’s order, he “will be adversely impacted by several . . .  initiatives[, such as an initiative that] would create a mandatory state-run paid medical and family leave program into which employers and employees would be required to contribute[, and another that] would eliminate Colorado’s flat rate of income taxation and would replace it with a graduated income tax system under which Plaintiff Ritchie’s taxes would be increased.”

Ritchie hired law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, with former Boulder County DA Stan Garnett listed as one of the attorneys filing to protect Ritchie’s right to his wealth. Garnett shared that he “would be crazy to pass up” the opportunity to work for the firm. Justice may be blind, but it certainly sees the color of money.

The post Governor’s Order on Ballot Initiatives Highlights Justice Inequities – Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

“Maybe I’m tired and I’m an idiot but… isn’t this a lot of hand wringing for things that still have to be approved by the voters? It’s not like we’re talking about passing these measures into law: It’s about allowing [people] to vote on them.”

So wrote Shay Castle in a tweet covering the April 14th Boulder City Council discussion about how to handle initiative petitions whose sponsors are unable to collect signatures in-person, thus potentially quashing several ballot measures being attempted this year:

1. No Eviction Without Representation (NEWR), which would provide any tenant facing eviction funding to hire an attorney. (see newrboulder.com)

2. Bedrooms Are For People, a charter amendment that would “allow all housing units to be occupied by a number of people equal to the number of bedrooms plus one, and allow housing units with fewer than four bedrooms to have four people . . . .”
(see bedroomsareforpeople.com)

3. End The Muni, would “[s]top the muni and reallocate the utility occupation tax to other climate measures.”
(see bit.ly/3adlwcT)

Though dates and number of signatures required vary, the problem each initiative faces is the same: it is unsafe and currently against the Governor’s emergency orders to collect signatures.

In 2018, Boulder voters approved collecting digital petition signatures. This would have provided a solution to the current conundrum, but staff have eschewed an open source, free software solution and  instead have been working towards a software solution that would cost the city between $250,000 and $500,000 to license.

Advocates for the Bedrooms Are For People initiative share that they want to see a solution that doesn’t place an undue burden on voters, such as signing via phone.

These initiatives should all reach the voters, because as Castle opined, the worst case scenario is people get to vote on them.

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…And we all feel fine. At least the vast majority of us did, until or unless we had been reading about needing to flatten the curve representing COVID-19 cases vs. time. American healthcare, long in the headlines, is now in the spotlight because unless the rate of illness contraction doesn’t, well, contract, our hospitals will soon be overwhelmed. Mayor Hancock in Denver has preemptively commandeered the Convention Center. New York is burying people in mass graves in a park. 

As I write this, all bars and restaurants are closed for anything but take-out. The airlines are already requesting a bail-out, and the president has called for sending checks directly to Americans, and not just the rich ones. The $2 Trillion stimulus passed. Truly the world is on its head.

Already old news is the paltry number of people, surely in great measure because of the threat of this virus, showing up for the Democratic caucuses in Colorado. In my opinion, the stalwarts showing up eschewing Hickenlooper for Senate are at least a silver lining to the current grey skies. Nevertheless, it’s clearly time to move towards a mail-in primary voting scheme in Colorado, where we have successfully adopted such voting for so many other election matters.

With public buildings in most or all of Boulder County shut down, many of our unhoused neighbors literally have not a pot to piss in. Or a place to wash their hands. Despite frequent hand washing being the number one way to minimize the chances of infection, the city of Boulder declined to provide even handwashing stations throughout areas people experiencing homelessness congregate during the day. You know, that part of the day when, with libraries, restaurants, and coffee shops closed, there is absolutely nowhere for them to get out of the elements.

Trump has suggested that he’ll freeze evictions, but without work and a small temporary UBI check on the way, this doesn’t preclude evictions being enacted once the national emergency is declared over. With so many about to face homelessness, thinking about how we treat the least of these might just become popular. 

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Second and Twentieth Judicial District Attorneys Beth McCann and Michael Dougherty joined in a recent friend of the court (amicus) brief submission to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.

According to the brief, they join 55 other “current and former District and State’s Attorneys, state Attorneys General and corrections leaders, as well as former United States Attorneys and Department of Justice officials…”

At issue is treatment of unaccompanied alien [read: undocumented] children held in the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center in West Virginia. Children allegedly suffering mental health conditions that brief authors say warrant trauma-informed mental health care were instead subjected to physical restraint. This included being strapped to a chair and held in isolation. The need for trauma-informed care and the resulting better outcomes is, appropriately, mentioned 66 times in the brief, arguing that such care promotes public safety.

The brief describes isolating these children and strapping them to a chair as “draconian punishment. . . that exacerbated harm,” including “exacerbat[ing] existing mental health problems, . . . panic attacks, suicidal and self-injurious behavior, psychotic symptoms, paranoia, and hopelessness.”

That our D.A.s in both Boulder and Denver have joined the voices of prosecutors across the country to decry such treatment of detained children deserving compassionate care is heartening. This brief touts a much needed shift from the retributive, tough on crime model of justice in place for over forty years. A myriad of research now documents the deleterious impact of isolation on prisoners, with hallucination occurring sometimes within hours.

Strapping people to chairs or placing them in isolation during a mental health crisis, however, is common practice, even in our Boulder County jail (see http://bit.ly/2Sbu1Ox). If it is draconian in West Virginia, it is surely just as draconian here.

The post Community Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

If the truism that it is always darkest before the dawn holds up, local and national government policy on homelessness must soon see positive change. Current policy across the country has indeed gotten darker, from Trump vilifying people experiencing homelessness for causing harm to those seeking “prestigious real estate” and placing “real-life horror” Robert Marbut in the role of national homeless czar, to Redding, CA, Mayor Julie Winter seeking to lock them up until they can “demonstrate self-sufficiency.”

The National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty’s update to the “Housing Not Handcuffs” report says in part, “the  criminalization  of  homelessness  is  prevalent  across  the  country  and  has  increased  in  every  measured  category  since  2006… We  also  found  a  growth  in  laws  criminalizing  homelessness…” Camping bans have increased 15 percent and the number of people experiencing homelessness increased 10 percent in the last three years. Future reports may see the number of camping bans decrease, however, as a result of the Supreme Court’s recent denial of Boise’s appeal in Martin v. City of Boise: “as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property, on the false premise they had a choice in the matter.”

Rather than address the root causes of homelessness — overwhelmingly a lack of affordable housing and wages that are far behind cost of living — cities like Boulder implement ever more draconian policy that places those who are already at risk, while homeless, in greater danger of staying homeless.

In Boulder (e.g.) service providers require six months residence before one can access anything except the walk up shelter offered only when temperatures are predicted below temperature thresholds (not based on science or safety). Council members and staff defend opening the shelter only at 32 degrees or lower as better than some other cities in a race to the bottom for care of our most vulnerable. With over 70 percent of those accessing such services reporting a disability, one should hope this truly is the darkness before the dawn.

The post Community Corner: Darkest Before the Dawn? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The recent lawsuit Lauren Gotthelf filed for excessive use of force in Boulder County Jail is buttressed by video evidence of her being tased while strapped to a chair and placed on suicide watch. In years past, such alleged abuse could not be corroborated.

In 2013, Boulderite Joshua Johnson was similarly placed on suicide watch in a common area where no surveillance video was in place (see http://bit.ly/2NcOBwL). Deputies reportedly broke Johnson’s nose and punched him in the stomach, and after four hours strapped to a chair, Johnson said they then left him “curled up into a ball, covered in urine and blood . . . ”

After Johnson’s story came to light, video surveillance was put in place in the suicide watch  area, video that Gotthelf is using. Jail management at the time the camera was installed said they had nothing to hide.

It is true that the jail’s policy, based on a statement from Boulder County Sheriff’s Cmdr. Mike Wagner, is openly that “a Taser may be used if a person is uncooperative.”

Should an uncooperative inmate be subjected to tasering, broken bones, and other such treatment for their own supposed safety when that person is already strapped in a chair and fully restrained, as Gotthelf’s complaint alleges?

Of interest, too, why was Gotthelf jailed for minor violations (for having her service dog off leash and smoking in a prohibited zone) that would ordinarily result in a citation and summons? According to the Boulder Police Department (BPD) Policies and Procedures manual, such violations do not mandate arrest, but refusing to sign a summons may be considered in deciding to arrest. Gotthelf is reported to have refused to sign the summons. However, the same section of BPD Policies and Procedures states that in Colorado it is sufficient that a police officer signs the summons. It was not mandatory that Gotthelf be arrested for refusing to sign her ticket.

Boulder Police chose to arrest a woman for minor offenses, and deputies at the jail tased her while already allegedly restrained. This hardly resembles justice.   

The post Community Corner: Protect & Serve or Arrest & Torture? appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The City of Boulder’s Charter, Article II, Section 13, describes the only power expressly withheld from council members; Bob Yates violated this rule blatantly and publicly. For such flouting of this express rule limiting council member powers, voters will have to decide if Yates should be rewarded with keeping his seat in the upcoming election. This Charter section reads as follows:

Except for purposes of inquiry, the council shall deal with the administrative service solely and directly through the city manager, and . . council . . .  shall [not] direct . . . the work of any officer or employee under the city manager. Any such . . . interference on the part of any member of the council shall be punishable in the manner deemed appropriate by the other members of the council, which may include removal from office. (Emphasis added)

While the reasoning for this single express power being withheld from council members is not clear, its existence as the sole limit on their power speaks to the value of it to those who created the laws. One can guess it was meant to ensure no single council member could interfere with and direct the actions of police officers or other city employees.

The night before an August, 2016, study session on homelessness, Yates shared in a meeting with homeless advocates, myself included, that it was “difficult . . . to say, ‘Chief [of police] please more firmly enforce the camping ban,’ . . . without a companion emergency housing solution.” Shockingly, the very next night, Council Member Yates spoke directly to Chief Testa and directed him to fully enforce the camping ban.

Yates broke the lone rule forbidding such direction. He overcame whatever supposed difficulty he had contemplated, issuing with hubris a firm imperative to our Chief of Police in absolute violation of the City Charter.

While Yates’s fellow council members took no action for this violation, the voters of Boulder have an opportunity to send a message to every city council member this November when voting on Yates’s open seat: council members are not above the law. 

The post Community Corner – Yates Wielded Forbidden Power appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Ever since Naropa University student Zayd Atkinson was detained without cause for the non-crime of picking up garbage while Black, the City of Boulder’s response provides some hope for the future, but the response of some Boulder police officers should give us all pause.

A particularly illuminating email from Officer Ryan Lord offers insight into the attitude of some of the officers who regularly dole out citations to our community of people experiencing homelessness in Boulder. (See Officer Lord express that homeless people can leave the country if they want here: bit.ly/BPD_officerlord). In March, Lord wrote to the City Manager complaining that homeless people are not dealt with punitively enough for his liking. Officer Lord would, it appears, have Boulder’s already overcrowded jail filled with people serving the maximum sentence possible for crimes related to their unhoused status.

More revealing, is Officer Lord’s opinions about Boulder’s laws targeting homeless folks. He wrote “The Constitutionally questionable ‘City Manager Rule’ on smoking is one of those laws we, as the Police, are told to enforce. Why? It is focused on a particular demographic. And yet, as the most obvious extension of the City Government, we, the police, are castigated because the City Council has put us in the untenable position of enforcing their laws and not stepping up to assume the responsibility for those laws.” Officer Lord goes on to warn against a police oversight committee that he asserts could lead to an “out of control homeless issue,” citing Portland, Seattle, and San Francisco and describing them as “veritable cesspools of rot and decay.”

That’s a lot to unpack, but it is telling that a Boulder Police Officer is stating on the record that our enforcement policies against homeless people are unconstitutional.

On that at least, I agree with Officer Lord.

The post Community Corner | Officer Lord V the UnHoused appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

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Darren O’Connor is the legal writer for Yellow Scene and graduated from Sturm College of Law in the 2019 cohort (not yet licensed). He was the President of the law school’s National Lawyer Guild chapter, and he is currently the Chair of the Criminal Justice Committee  for the NAACP Boulder County Branch. 

Sammie Lawrence, by Paul Wedlake

Mr. Troyer’s so-called independent review of Mr. Lawrence’s brutal arrest regurgitates the Boulder Police Department’s reports and, leaving critical details out, predictably but disappointingly concludes that no policy was violated either in the arrest or in the department’s review of the arrest.

Mr. Lawrence and his legal counsel were denied any input into the investigation, and it is thus not surprising that missing from the report is any mention of law or fact that are germane to the concerns of Mr. Lawrence and the community. No mention is made of Mr. Lawrence stating repeatedly during the incident that the “staff” in his hands was a walking aid he requires for his disability of suffering from non-epileptic seizures. No mention is made of Boulder Revised Code 5-5-3(b), which states in part that “No person, upon being ordered by a police officer to move to a distance of eight feet from the police officer, or to a specific place which is no more than eight feet from the officer, while the officer is investigating what the officer reasonably suspects is a crime or violation of this code, is interviewing a suspect or potential witness, or is making an arrest, shall fail to comply with such order,” (emphasis added).

Reasonable Suspicion And Obstruction Assessment

Mr. Lawrence appears to have been further than eight feet from arresting officer Lolotai during the entire encounter. It is unclear whether Officer Lolotai was ever conducting an investigation or suspected a crime, warranting detaining suspects or, in this case, issuing an order that a reasonable person would believe he has to follow (keeping in mind that just a month prior, the police agreed that policy was broken when an officer attempted to detain Zayd Atkinson and he refused to follow the officers’ orders).

In order for an officer to invade a citizen’s privacy protected by the Fourth Amendment,”(1) there must be an articulable and specific basis in fact for suspecting that criminal activity has taken place, is in progress, or is about to occur; (2) the purpose of the intrusion must be reasonable; and (3) the scope and character of the intrusion must be reasonably related to its purpose.” People v. Perez, 852 P.2d 1297, 1300 (Colo. App. 1992) (emphasis added).

Troyer reports that Lolotai was at the scene “because there was a large group of homeless people in that area littering, smoking marijuana, and disturbing people.” City Attorney Tom Carr made the public statement that “the officers were talking to three homeless individuals on the ground. There was no ticket issued before or after. I don’t know if there was ever any intent to issue a ticket.” 

There is a large gap, both literally and credibly, between a report of “a large group of homeless people” breaking the law and “three homeless individuals on the ground” and not knowing “if there was ever any intent to issue a ticket.” 

If our City Attorney, in reviewing the arrest, was unsure whether Officer Lolotai was conducting an investigation or simply having a conversation based on the consent of the individuals he approached, how was Mr. Lawrence to be sure? 

Regardless, if Officer Lolotai was deemed to be investigating a possible crime, he is still only authorized to tell a person to step back eight feet or less. Mr. Lawrence appeared to have been located further than eight feet away during the entire time Officer Lolotai threatened him with arrest. Not until he arrested Mr. Lawrence was the distance less than this. At no time was kicking Mr. Lawrence’s walking aid away and violently throwing him to the ground an intrusion within the scope and character that could be reasonably related to its purpose. (Id.) 

Complete Discounting Of Mr. Lawrence Verbalizing His Disability

Troyer’s report fails to reference at all Mr. Lawrence’s disability, despite Mr. Lawrence stating clearly in the videos that he was disabled and that what he was holding was his ADA qualified walking aid. Troyer regurgitates that Officer Lolotai instructed Mr. Lawrence that “he was welcome to video-record the encounter but would have to step back or put down the staff.” 

Neither of these options was reasonable. Mr. Lawrence, in accordance with Boulder law, was already further back than Officer Lolotai had authority to demand of him. Dropping his walking aid after Mr. Lawrence had described his medical reliance on the aid due to disability was also unreasonable. Would Officer Lolotai have asked someone on a respirator to desist using oxygen because the tank was scary? We doubt it. At no time did Mr. Lawrence offer any resistance other than calmly explaining he needed to be close enough to witness the officer’s treatment of those he was talking with.

Officer Lolotai’s supposed offer that Mr. Lawrence could continue to film was in fact no such offer at all. Mr. Lawrence had to choose between his medical safety, being unable to witness and film Officer Lolotai within his rights, or to do as he did: stand calmly and non-threateningly as a witness.

Mr. Lawrence was taken to the hospital for the injuries Officer Lolotai inflicted, and requested but was denied a wheelchair. Medical personnel ignored Mr. Lawrence as the latter informed them he was about to have a seizure, claiming he was faking the seizure, and he subsequently fell to the floor. Mr. Lawrence has had to seek emergency medical care at public events in the past, and we find the police and the staff at Boulder Community Hospital ignoring his expression of his medical condition disturbing, to say the least. Hospital nurses and police do not qualify as medical experts to so easily discount a person having a non-epileptic seizure, as Mr. Lawrence describes his condition.

Notwithstanding the above,  filming the police is a First Amendment protected activity, and “the rights of the state to limit the exercise of First Amendment activity are ‘sharply circumscribed.'” in a public park (the forum in which Mr. Lawrence was arrested and beaten). Glick v. Cunniffe,  655 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2011) (holding that lower court’s denial of qualified immunity to police who arrested a citizen recording the police in a public park was not in error).

Officer Lolotai’s Numerous Uses of Force Show Boulder Has An Informal Policy, Pattern, or Practice Of Condoning Excessive Use Of Force.

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Officer Lolotai assaults Kelly Clark, lawsuit pending

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Officer Lolotai’s excessive use of force is documented in a recent civil case brought forward by Kelly Clark, a diminutive 5’4″woman he pushed off her feet and into the air less than a year ago. Under more confrontational, but still disturbing conditions, Officer Lolotai smashed 5’2″ Michele Rodriguez’s face into the ground, leaving her bloody. A jury recently found her not guilty of an obstruction charge (the same charge Lolotai used as an excuse for Ms. Clark and Mr. Lawrence) by reason of self defense against the 6’4, 265 pound former football player.

Boulder Police Department hired Officer Lolotai with full knowledge he was under investigation at the Denver Jail for similar excessive use of force. He quit and was hired on with Boulder before the investigation, which had gone on for over a year, was completed. His resignation ended the investigation and kept his record clear of any finding of improper behavior. This is a method by which officers avoid responsibility for their inappropriate behavior and go on to be rehired at another department where they, too often, repeat the same behavior. Such is the case here.

Conclusion: Independent Review In Name Only

The Boulder Police Department investigation, and now Mr. Troyer’s, is, sadly, a whitewashing and sanitizing narrative, leaving out damning facts and law in a clear effort to absolve BPD – and office Lolotai specifically – of the beating of a young, disabled Black man, which shocks the conscience of the Boulder community. We conclude that the police cannot police themselves, and that this independent investigation was anything but.

The post Boulder’s Independent Legal Review Of Sammie Lawrence Arrest: Anything But appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

This past legislative session saw some truly inspired bills regarding incarceration make it through the process to become law in Colorado, to the betterment of us all.

Elizabeth Epps

I wrote recently about prison abolitionist Elisabeth Epps, who was herself jailed this year and discovered in her first days of incarceration that feminine hygiene products were unavailable. Representative Leslie Herod and Senator Faith Winter sponsored House Bill 19-1224, titled “Free Menstrual Hygiene Products In Custody,” which sailed through both the House and Senate receiving unanimous support. Among other facilities, municipal jails and private prisons must now provide menstrual hygiene products whenever a prisoner requests them.

Another incarceration-related bill, HB19-1225, ended cash bail requirements for petty offenses and traffic violations. This bill also passed unanimously, and also saw Ms. Epps’s hand in its becoming law following her successful effort in bringing community partners and attention together to end jail processing and court fees in Denver. Also supporting this bill was the ACLU of Colorado, which previously championed a bill ending debtors’ prisons. It’s worth your time reading more on the topic of debtors’ prisons at Wikipedia, where you’ll learn, for example, that “James Wilson, a signatory to the Declaration of Independence, spent some time in a debtors’ prison while still serving as an Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.” Whether you work for the highest court in the land or have no job at all, Colorado has declared you shall not go to jail simply because you cannot ante up some tens to hundreds of dollars.

Police brutality and racial bias in policing cases around Boulder have been prevalent in the news lately, and the Boulder Police Department’s internal affairs investigation has cleared most of the officers involved in drawing weapons on an unarmed Black student of any wrongdoing. After such investigations, many police departments have refused to make the findings of such investigations available to the public when requested under the Colorado Open Records Act. This was well-documented by my fellow students at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law, but thanks to sponsor Rep. James Coleman and Senator Mike Foote, HB19-1119, titled “Peace Officer Internal Investigation Open Records,” became law and now compels internal investigation records be made available.

How we treat our poor who enter the justice system and transparency in policing are topics of profound importance, and this year, our legislators acknowledged this in passing these bills.

The post Community Corner: Inspiring Incarceration Bills Signed in Colorado’s 2019 Legislative Session appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Originally published for YellowScene Magazine’s May 2019 issue.

SRO’s at School Year’s End

This legal column began with a piece challenging school resource officers (police) in schools. I end the school year on this topic after a recent shooting at Denver’s STEM School. Lives were very likely saved in that horrific shooting incident when a student of color, Kendrick Ray Castillo, reportedly jumped on the shooter and was fatally shot.

Our DA recently shared that “as the father of 11 year old twins, when I show up and see an officer is [at their school], I’m glad that there’s someone there to protect the kids.” To be fair, he spoke at length on the importance of ensuring those officers don’t act with bias. A white mother of a Black 11 year old replied: “I’m assuming your 11 year old kids are white […] My 11 year old son is Black, and it makes me very nervous any time ANY police are around. So far I’ve said no, do not trust them [the police].”

A member of the NAACP Boulder County Branch Education Committee says the adults making policy decisions are not nearly as diverse as the students they make decisions for. Left unassisted are Black children; she listed several being bullied and receiving an inadequate response from school officials. Black administrators, teachers, and community advocates who wouldn’t normally have to be involved in such concerns have had to step in to assist. Providing such assistance can burn them out from these not-uncommon and unpaid efforts.

The need for social workers and mental health care is so significant that at every school accountability meeting she hears “their hair is on fire” trying to provide it.

The call for more SROs – who are no guarantee of safety and create their own risks – must not drown out the undeniable need for mental health care professionals in our schools. We all want our children safe, and social workers provide the safest first step in solving many of the ills, from suicide to homicide, taking place in our schools.

The post Community Corner: May 2019 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

One month after eight officers surrounded a Black Naropa student for the non-crime of cleaning as part of his work study job on his own rental property, Boulder Police Department officers seem to feel the national spotlight had dimmed enough to repeat much of the same behavior.

This time, again on film, police told a young Black man, Sammie Leon Lawrence IV, to drop what he had in his hand: a walking aid he repeatedly identified as ADA compliant. As he speaks to officers from a distance that appears beyond what’s required by BPD’s obstruction ordinance, police tell him to move. Lawrence replies, “I’m just watching sir. I am not seeing myself impeding in any way shape or form. If there is anything you wish to do involved with this, I would gladly step back, because I am not trying to impede you.”

Disregarding Lawrence’s comments about his walking aid and his willingness to step back if the police were going to do anything, Officer Lolotai rapidly escalates the situation, kicks Lawrence’s walking aid away, and takes him to the ground. Lawrence ended up with multiple deep resulting abrasions and later claims officers and medical personnel failed to protect him as he suffered a seizure in their care, resulting in him striking the ground with his head while handcuffed.

What a difference a month makes.

Boulder City Attorney Tom Carr was voted out as City Attorney in Seattle and called out there for “block[ing] . . . police-misconduct information from going public.”

Responding to concerns from NAACP Boulder County Branch members about Lawrence’s treatment, Carr says he reviewed the videos. He called the encounter “hostile,” and claims Lawrence’s walking aid “would make a quite formidable weapon if used as such,” but does not address that Lawrence offered to “gladly step back,” and clearly never made any threat with his walking aid.

Carr shared that no-one besides the young Black disabled man was arrested. Nevermind, it appears that the more things change in Boulder, the more they stay the same.

The post Community Corner: What a difference a month makes appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Can you imagine the end of cash bail and pre-trial detention, the abolition of jail and prisons in their entirety? Elisabeth Epps can, and she’s working to make it a reality.

The website blackbailout.org is home to the Colorado Freedom Fund. The fund began in 2018, according to the website, which describes its initial efforts as follows: “With your love and support, in May we bought freedom for 17 of our Mamas and Sisters for Mother’s Day. In June we welcomed 18 more of our folks out of Colorado cages for Father’s Day and Juneteenth.” The goals of Colorado Freedom Fund (CFF) are described as “ (1) ending money bail in Colorado; while (2) mitigating its harmful effects on our people, until cash bond is a thing of the past.”

Epps is very much the face of the organization.

She knows all too well the indignities and harms that come from incarceration. She was herself arrested in 2015 while assisting a man having what witnesses and law enforcement described as a breakdown. Upon helping deliver the man safely to his family member, the narrative differs between officers and Ms. Epps. Police and prosecutors filed several charges as a result of the interaction, and all but one were dropped: “interfering with police”.

Aurora Judge Shawn Day asserted in court that Ms. Epps, herself an attorney, exhibited contempt towards the court and the rule of law. He issued her a jail sentence and, apparently acting on his frustration and perception of contempt for the court and the rule of law, stated, “There’s nothing that I can say that will change that. There may be something that I can do, though, with my sentence.”

Dave Russell, a supporter, wrote on Judge Day’s behavior in court: Judge Day pointedly and intentionally re-traumatized Elisabeth at her imposition of sentence hearing by recounting her arrest in explicit detail. There was no judicial reason for this other than to hurt her. During his vile attack, he described her as being “hobbled” as she was placed in custody. Hobbled. This one has stuck with me more than any of the other dozen instances of racism I witnessed in his courtroom. Here’s [one of] the Webster’s definition of hobbled: “to fasten together the legs of an animal, such as a horse, to prevent straying.”

She is not even human to him. Do not for an instant excuse his vile word choice.

My outrage distills down to this: A thoroughly mediocre white man, who is a racist, was allowed to sit in judgement of a brilliant, fierce black woman. And in the end he had the power to put her in a cage. This is white supremacy.

Supporters arrived early and filled multiple courtrooms in Aurora for Ms. Epps’s final sentencing. When Judge Day issued his final sentence, he provided an option for work release. Ms. Epps left the Arapahoe County jail each morning and returned each night devoting those hours to getting others free through CFF. She also posted brief FaceBook live videos to discuss the conditions of her detention, including that when she went in for her first night’s incarceration, while menstruating, no feminine hygiene products were available.

Ms. Epps’s frustrating experience with menstruating while incarcerated and her willingness to share it publicly may produce legislative action. Lawmakers are now, “looking at ways to [provide feminine care products] for local jails.”

Epps has continuing concerns about the impact on POC – like herself – when interacting with the police and the justice system. Judge Day chose to mischaracterize her statistically supported concerns as contempt. As a future attorney, I stand behind Ms. Epps and her behavior both in court and in public – protecting a man experiencing a mental health crisis from potential harm at the hands of police. Her statements were not made to express contempt for the court and the rule of law, as Judge Day would have us believe. Instead, she expressed a condemnation of a system that inspired attorney and law professor Michelle Alexander to write The New Jim Crow, a book Denver District Attorney Beth McCann gave to employees and discussed with them upon taking office. Ironically Ms. Epps was featured, with other prominent advocates, on the front cover of the January issue of 5280 Magazine.

Elisabeth Epps is now free and back to work bailing out others. –I am grateful, because the world is a better place with Ms. Epps in it.

If you would like to support the Colorado Freedom Fund and the work of Ms. Epps and others, you may contribute through the website: Coloradofreedomfund.org.

The post Community Corner: Chasing Freedom with Elisabeth Epps appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The post The O’Connor Corner: CO Legal appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Mental Health Diversion.

“It’s why we started the mental health diversion program . . . . Brent . . . has been arrested 35 times in the last five years. . . . He shared with me he has a mental health disorder. We have to do better for him. We have to do better for our community.”

District Attorney Michael Dougherty shared this at a forum in June. He described to attendees the work he has been doing to implement a program to get people who need and qualify for mental health assistance out of the criminal justice system and into mental health services.

Such pre-trial diversion will help people like Brent and reduce the strain on Boulder’s overpopulated jail, sometimes holding nearly twice the number of people it was designed for.

To participate in the program, people with a possible mental illness would go through a short mental health screening process with a nurse. Those with certain charges, such as domestic violence or assault, would not qualify. On a voluntary basis, a pre-trial mental health navigator would conduct a more thorough assessment.

Dougherty is working with, among others, Sheriff Pelle, Boulder County Community Justice Services, and the Public Defenders Office and has secured grant funding from both the State and Federal Government.

Support Services Commander Tim Oliveira at the Sheriff’s Office is heading up the implementation team, and hopes the funding will support 2.5 positions, including the pre-trial mental health navigator. Additionally, he says they are looking for multiple community partners that can provide mental health services, stressing that this will not be a one-size-fits-all program.

Oliveira stressed that individuals will be treated on a case by case basis aiming for the best chance at successful treatment and diversion out of the justice system. With such treatment, people like Brent will stop cycling in and out of jail as their mental health issues are addressed.

Individuals may receive support with transportation and text messages reminding them of upcoming appointments.

It looks promising that this effort will achieve the goal laid out by District Attorney Dougherty for people like Brent: the County will do better for him, and for the community.

The post The O’Connor Corner: CO Legal appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

“Stand up and act like a lady. . . now you can go to jail.”

These were the words of Denver Police Department’s Officer Brooks as he handcuffed a woman who had stopped to photograph the Denver Police surrounding a naked Black man on the street in Denver. She was standing well away from the action when Officer Brooks approached and instructed her to stop filming.

Officers misstated to the woman, who turned out to be Susan Greene, editor of the Colorado Independent newspaper, that she couldn’t film because “this is protected by HIPAA, you can’t record it.”

HIPPA regulations are meant to protect access to our medical records, not to prohibit citizens from recording the police interacting with someone perhaps having a mental health episode. In fact, such people are at far greater risk, with one comprehensive study concluding “at least half of the people shot and killed by police each year in this country have mental health problems.”

Greene shared in an interview why she stopped: “There’s a black man, butt naked on the sidewalk handcuffed surrounded by a bunch of cops, and I see one of [the officers] laughing.” Greene would know this is a risky situation, because she has covered the deaths of two African American men who died in Denver’s jail. Denver has paid out over nine million dollars as a result of these men’s deaths, with the families represented by legal firm Killmer, Lane, and Newman (KLN).

Denver District Attorney Beth McCann told Greene over the phone she would not to press charges against Officer Brooks. She also shared that “‘people are entitled to take pictures as long as [they] are not’ getting in the way of police, [adding] that Brooks’ ‘act like a lady’ comment ‘was a little unnecessary.’”

Greene’s attorney, Mari Newman at KLN, has since stated that “[i]f we need to file a legal action to hold the city accountable, so be it.”

The ACLU of Colorado points out that, “Taking photographs and video of things that are plainly visible in public spaces is a constitutional right—and that includes police and other government officials carrying out their duties,'” a freedom heightened for members of the press, of which Susan Green clearly is.

Officer Brooks’ misogynist comments and baseless arrest meanwhile remain unpunished: just another day in the life of an officer in the second most deadly law enforcement agency in the country.

The post The O’Conner Corner: CO Legal appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

It’s back to school time, and you know what that means: time to teach your kids their rights when dealing with police officers. Why? Because the school resource officers (SROs) showing up in more and more schools are really no more than just that — police in schools. Colorado law provides school administrators no oversight or authority over SROs, and those same SROs can question a child without a parent present.

If that seems ridiculous, read Colorado Revised Statute 22-32-146 for yourself (bit.ly/CRS_SRO), which will inform you, for example, that if an SRO arrests a child on school grounds, the SRO’s only obligation to the principal is to provide notification of the arrest within 24 hours. That’s your child missing for a full day.

While SROs are often, understandably, wanted for the safeguarding of our children, such faith is questionable. The recent failure of the SRO at the Parkland school shooting in Florida to even enter the building where an active shooter was killing children and staff is a poignant example showing that an armed officer on school property cannot guarantee our children’s safety.

State Representative Leslie Herod, making the case — successfully — that a $35,000,000 addition to the budget for school safety in 2018-19 should not fund additional SROs, shared that “the [Colorado] statewide out-of-school suspension rate grew by 19 percent during the 2014-15 school year, [and] there were 3.5 times more suspensions of black students than white students.” She warned that, “A greater police presence will only increase [the] arrests [of youth, especially youth of color,] . . . robbing children of their futures and funneling a generation out of the classroom and into jail cells.”

Back to school time is the perfect time to demand that your child’s school offer “know your rights” training. Skilled attorneys at Learn Your Rights In Colorado are prepared to do so for free. Email them at HELLO@LYRICOLORADO.ORG.

The post O’Connor Legal Corner appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Politics can be boring. I know. It’s impossible to follow all the races and be informed on all the positions. Some races seem more important. The governor’s race gets all the glamour: news pieces, tv spots, editorials, interviews galore. We’re almost all aware of the congresssional and state house candidates (at least in our little area), plastering our neighborhoods with leaflets, pamphlets, door hangers, and yard signs. But no race – no race – has more impact on the lived reality of citizens than the District Attorney. These are the people who have incredible power and latitude in prosecuting our laws. When we look at the state of the American prison system, out incarcerating notoriously oppressive nations like China and Russia, maybe we think we need to do better or wonder if Americans are really that much more prone to crime. Hint: they’re not.  The DA has direct bearing on our overcrowded and overfunded prisons. The DA has discretion on prosecuting crimes, whether seeking prison time for local activists or trying to hold the powerful accountable .More locally, when we look at our own patch of planet and realise that our state is set, for the first time its history, to pass the $1B budgetary mark on the backs of increased minor drug possession and incarceration of women, we have to pause and ask: what the hell are our state district attorney’s doing?

To answer that question, and a few others, we sent longtime contributor, Darren O’Connor, out to interview Michael Foote and Michael Dougherty, candidates for the office of the District Attorney in Boulder County. Responses have been edited for clarity and space.

Michael Dougherty:

I was born in Brooklyn, New York, proud grandson of four Irish immigrants who came over on the boat and settled there and raised their families there. My dad was a New York City public school teacher and went on to become a principal. My mom was a waitress and department store clerk. I went to community college and worked nights and weekends to put myself through school. Ultimately I went on to law school at Boston University. For a long time, I thought I’d become a public defender representing indigent people. But I had a professor who told me if I found the right DA’s office, that the mission would be to do justice. And that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 20 years as a prosecutor. I started at the Manhattan District Attorney’s office, worked my way up through the ranks becoming the deputy chief of the sex crimes unit, where I was supervising 45 attorneys working on sex-assault and human trafficking cases. That’s more attorneys, by the way, than we have in the Boulder DA’s Office. For the last three years there, I was in charge of the day to day operation for a staff of 1,300 people. So I know first hand what it means to be a leader in a large and busy office, and how important it is for leaders to have integrity and a vision for the office. My brother had moved out to Colorado–he is currently a physician assistant at the hospital. My parents sold their place in New York and got a place in Boulder. They’ve since passed, but my wife Antonia and I would come out and visit them and fell in love with Boulder. What prompted us to actually make the leap and leave our lives in New York was the opportunity to start up a wrongful conviction project here in Colorado. The Attorney General secured a federal grant to go back and look at convictions involving murder, manslaughter, or sexual assault and determine if anybody was sitting in a state prison who was in fact innocent.  So we moved out here for that, and seven months later I was put in charge of the criminal section of the Attorney General’s Office. I continued to oversee that project. That project actually led to the exoneration of Robert Dewey. Then for the last five years I’ve been the 2nd in command for the DA’s office in Golden. I have two kids, twins who are ten years old. They’re amazing kids, thanks to their mom–their dad’s still finding his way–but I’m really fortunate, ever since we moved to Colorado we’ve lived in North Boulder, and we live about five minutes from where we are right now (Logan’s Coffee Shop at Quince and Broadway).

Mike Foote:

I first came out to Boulder County in 1999 looking at law schools. I grew up in Indiana, went to undergrad there, and worked in Indiana for four years, at Indiana University. I came out to Boulder, and like so many folks, completely fell in love with Boulder as soon as I got here. At the time it [the law school] was just the old Fleming building. I was looking around, and not really all that impressed with the building, and thought I wasn’t going to end up going to law school here but then I rented a bike at U-Bikes and rode it to the top of Flagstaff that day and decided this was a great place to go, and I wanted to spend my life here. I’ve been here since 1999, other than about a year and a half after I graduated and worked in the Durango DA’s Office–Boulder wasn’t hiring–then I came back and got a job in the Boulder office. I’ve been working at the Boulder office since 2004,  doing all different types of cases. I was specializing in complex economic crimes for several years, then I ran for office for House District 12 starting in 2012. During the legislative session I’m on leave from the office–from January until the end of May–and I just completed my sixth year as a state representative, and was back at the office for the other seven months out of the year. I prosecuted all types of cases, sexual assault trials, pretty much whatever was needed, including spending seven months working on a juvenile docket, for example. So that’s part of the experience I’ll bring to the District Attorney’s position. As a state legislator, it was a fantastic experience, it  was a great learning experience in so many ways. I was fortunate enough to represent east Boulder County and  ran a number of bills on criminal justice issues, on education, and this year I even got to run a big bill on healthcare. Certainly my focus was on criminal justice and energy, particularly oil and gas. I have two young girls, one is nine, one is six. The nine year old is Amelia, the six year old is Leanna. My wife Heidi and I have been married since 2005. We’ve lived in Lafayette since 2005, and we love it there, we love Boulder County. It’s a great place for us and for our family and we feel very fortunate to raise our family here.

YS:  What are the legal boundaries for a DA addressing issues of oil and gas drilling in Boulder County and what are your thoughts on the topic both personally and professionally?

Michael Dougherty:

I’ve prosecuted environmental crimes in my career. In Colorado, the way it is structured, under statute, the Attorney General has original jurisdiction over most of the environmental crimes. The Feds also have authority over environmental crimes. DA’s have very very little statutory authority, very little ability to prosecute environmental crimes. To me it’s important that the DA be a good working partner with the Attorney General and with the Federal Government so that we can ensure that Boulder is protected. But the DA actually has little authority, so, what I would equate it to, my wife and I would say that fracking is a crime against humanity and a crime against mother Earth. If they put a drill in our backyard, my wife would probably want to go out there and assault the drill operator. That would be the only law under Colorado law that I could prosecute, though it would probably be bad for the marriage if that happened. So I think fracking is terrible, but I really am committed, as I am with every issue, quite frankly, I’m really committed to being honest about my authority here. I’ve been really honest and upfront with people about the fact that personally, I’m against fracking; I’d like to see our community be able to ban it. I will vigorously prosecute environmental crimes, but I’m also not going to mislead the voters and tell them I have some magical power as the DA that does not exist under the law.

Mike Foote:

The oil and gas industry is out of control in Colorado. The state has failed in keeping them in check. A reporter from the Colorado Independent interview[ed] a former Anadarko PR guy who describes a culture of sweeping problems under the rug, of not informing the state, of safety problems, and just so many acts of negligence and recklessness. And this was supposed to be one of those companies that do it right. When you would talk to folks like the Governor or others, they would claim “well there are some companies that don’t do it right and there are some companies that do it right–Anadarko is one that does it right.” But it’s clear they weren’t doing it right. It led to tragedy. And the reason why they do what they do, which is to say, pretty much ignore rules and regulations, is they know that nobody’s watching. There were fourteen fires and explosions since Firestone, all within the state. A couple of those resulted in fatalities of workers. The state has been very permissive [s]o I think that local jurisdictions have to pick up the slack where the state has left off. The District Attorney, I think, can do some of that–it’s not going to fall completely on the District Attorney, everybody has to do their part.  Some environmental statutes give the District Attorney original jurisdiction, and [for some,] the reference has to come from  Colorado Department of Public Health or the state. But some don’t require that, where the DA or the police department could send an investigator, and investigate, and if there is evidence, it could be prosecuted. So what I propose is that we actually do take an active role looking into possible environmental crime violations and to prosecute those violations if there is evidence to support doing so. It’s the difference between being passive, and being more assertive. There’s nothing really unusual about working with agencies–getting cases from agencies. What’s a little bit different is, up to this point, the District Attorney’s Office has not done that. And the prior District Attorney seems to think that we can’t. But I have looked at the statutes and I think that we can. I think at the very least, we should be assertive and go out and do whatever we can in this area, and make sure that we’re protecting Boulder County.

YS:  What can you tell our readers about the Conviction Integrity Unit and its future if you are elected to the DA position?

Michael Dougherty:

So on March 1st, when I took office, I recognized the importance of letting my staff and people in the community know my vision for the office. One of the top priorities was setting up the conviction integrity unit. I strongly believe as DA, it’s my mission, my mandate, to do justice. I should have a process that’s open, thorough and effective, and [includes] going back and looking at actual claims of innocence. In collaboration with the Boulder Public Defender, the private Defense Bar, and also CU’s Innocence Project clinic, we’ve set up a process for people to submit a request for us to go back and look at cases and see if they were wrongfully convicted. I have a tremendous amount of faith in the integrity of the DA’s Office, and our staff. But we still have to recognize that mistakes happen I mean, when I was a young prosecutor–I know what you’re thinking, I’m still a young prosecutor–cases didn’t [include] cell phone data, security cameras, text messages as evidence. It goes back to Mr. Dewey’s case. He was exonerated after serving 17 years in state prison for a murder he did not commit. Our work led to him being exonerated, as well as the actual killer being identified, arrested, and successfully prosecuted. And then we went to the legislature and fought to get a law passed that, Mr. Dewey, and anyone in his shoes, receives $70,000 from the state, as well as health care, and tuition if he wants to go back to school.

Mike Foote:

Well, I think that looking into old convictions, and making sure the job was done right and there wasn’t a mistake should be the duty of everyone that works in the DA’s office If there’s evidence brought forth that something was done in error, then we should always be willing to take a look at those things. I don’t see the conviction integrity unit as being much different from what each DA should be doing now anyway. I don’t know if you need to call it a unit–I mean it’s basically just assigning somebody to do it. That’s like saying, you’re doing district court cases, so now you’re part of the district court unit. I mean, I guess it sounds fancy, but I just think that every person in the office should always be willing to look at prior convictions, be willing to rectify any mistakes, that’s just part of what it’s like being a DA. So that certainly wouldn’t change when I’m elected. I’d want to talk to the folks that are doing it, I’d want to talk to the defense bar and the university and see if that’s the right way to do it, or see if it should be a different way. But I think the concept is sound.

YS:  Under the laws of Colorado regarding restorative justice, can you describe the amount of discretion judges and prosecutors have when applying or asking for a sentence after conviction?

Michael Dougherty:

I’m a strong believer in restorative justice. We have a robust restorative justice unit in the Boulder DA’s Office. It’s been incredibly successful in helping people get back on the right track. I think that really is part of the mission of the office, to help people who come in to the criminal justice system get back on the right track. I look at for example, the rate of recidivism: in Colorado, 48% of people released from state prison are back within three years. No-one can point to that number and tell me that’s a success. But for restorative justice in my office, the rate of recidivism is as low as 10%, and the highest we’ve had is 17%. I think the Boulder DA’s Office continues to be a model for the state,and we should have restorative justice programs all around the state. One other thing I’d mention to you is–and you’re the first reporter to hear this, this is breaking news–we’re going to be a pilot site for the state to have a mental health diversion program. What’s really innovative about it, and why I’m so excited about it, is it’s going to be pre-file. So individuals who come into the jail, who have a significant mental health challenge and are arrested on a low-level offense, will be diverted out of the jail within 72 hours and I will not charge those individuals. If you have a person that is struggling with mental health issues in the jail, they start to decompensate. They miss their kids, their work, their rent, you name it. Sheriff Pelle and I have partnered on this, along with the Public Defender’s Office, and the chief judge, and I’m really excited about it.

Mike Foote:

I’m pretty familiar with restorative justice, because I’ve referred cases to restorative justice as a prosecutor and, also, have done a number of things at the legislature to expand restorative justice and have supported those efforts. I think it’s a very good program and it should be used more. And yes, the District Attorney and judges have quite a bit of discretion to decide whether or not restorative justice should be used. The issue is, if it’s a victim crime, and the victim doesn’t want to participate, then you can’t force them to, and I think that’s very appropriate.  There are limitations. Restorative  justice takes longer, it takes more resources than putting someone on probation. I happen to think it’s a lot better than just putting someone on probation in certain cases. But it does take more resources, and you have to have willing parties to do it. So for example, if your defendant doesn’t want to do it and is going to resist it every step of the way, then it’s probably not going to be worth it. But, if the defendant wants to do it, if it’s a victim crime and the victim wants to do it, or if there are members of the community that want to do it, then I think it can be a very effective way to help rectify what happened, and help heal the community, and help heal the victim and the defendant going forward. So DA’s have  a lot of discretion in order  to refer a case to restorative justice, it just has to be a case that would be worthwhile to do so.

YS:  What is your perspective on the rise in felony rates, with Colorado reportedly seeing a 50% increase in felonies over the past five years, and do you agree that we have gone too far in criminal justice reforms and that has contributed to the increase in felonies?

Michael Dougherty:

I’m passionate about criminal justice reform. If we do it right, we actually enhance public safety. So I disagree with anyone who says that we’ve done too much in the area of criminal justice reform and that’s caused crimes to go up. I think that’s a knee jerk reaction and I don’t share it. In Boulder, we’ve had an increase of 30% in felony case filings over the last two years. We have five homicide trials scheduled for this year. We’ve had a sharp spike in violent felonies committed, and our staff is stretched really thin right now. We have an outstanding office, and they’re working incredibly hard to keep up with the influx of cases. But I don’t think it’s due to criminal justice reform efforts at all. I think if I had to point to one cause, if you told me just one, I would say the heroin and opioid epidemic. That drug addiction can be so powerful a disease that it causes people to engage in property theft that they would otherwise not engage in. So, bike thefts, car thefts, break ins–those things. When I see those things on the rise, I usually connect them to what we know is happening nationwide and here in Boulder: an increase in addiction to opioids and heroin.

Mike Foote:

I don’t think anyone’s positive as to why it’s gone up so much, so I don’t think we can say definitively why it’s gone up. In Boulder County, the biggest increases have been drug cases and domestic violence cases. So what’s causing that is a topic for debate. I think Boulder County is not unique in the increase in drug cases, particularly with opiates. Domestic violence is troubling because we’ve focused on it so well for so long, and to see it jump up like it has is troubling. I think there’s some things we can do in that area that can probably help that. In drug cases, I think there’s a lot we can do to refer cases through diversion or get out of the court system so it reduces the caseload and the workload on the courts and on the DA’S office. But you need resources at some point–like with treatment providers for example. One of the things that I’ll do when I start is go to the Boulder County Commissioners and ask for more money for treatment, and I think that helps everybody in the system, because it helps the DA’s office, first of all because we’re not messing around with cases that we shouldn’t be messing around with. And it helps the courts, and it helps the person that comes in, because going through the court system if what they need is treatment is not a very effective way to solve the issue. Felony filings have been going up around the state. It’s a troubling trend,one that lots of people are looking at to try to determine why. I don’t think it’s because of criminal justice reforms. I think that’s a convenient scapegoat that just doesn’t hold that much water in my opinion.

YS:  The Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition reported this year that, of those sentenced to prison in 2017 for drug possession, 84 percent were originally charged only with minor possession. They further found that the increase in drug felony filings appears to have a disproportionate impact on women offenders. How much discretion do you have in plea bargaining when someone is charged with felony drug possession and what are your goals in regard to reducing incarceration rates for women and minor drug possession?

Michael Dougherty:

I come at this from the perspective that I was a leader on Senate Bill 250 in 2012, which brought drug sentencing reform to Colorado. That was helpful, in that it allowed people who are convicted of a felony, for that conviction to be reduced to a misdemeanor if they comply with and complete treatment. But we still see too many people going to jail, and prison, for drug offenses. Jefferson County, where I worked for the last five years, we had the drug recovery court that was incredibly successful in helping people get out of that pipeline, and get back on their feet. So I want to bring that to Boulder, it’s on my list of goals. It’s something that I’ve already talked to the chief judge and the Public Defender about. I think, with drug offenses standing alone, we have an obligation to help people get treatment they need. So I want to improve the systems within the courthouse. But I also want to fight for more community resources. People shouldn’t have to wait until they hit the doors of the courthouse to get the treatment they need. And I think Boulder is a special place–we’ve done a lot since I moved here in 2009, to improve treatment opportunities for people, but I think we can still do more.

YS: FOLLOW UP: District Attorney V Activists: Boulder County Attorney Ben Pearlman directed police to issue a ticket to a man beaming an image of a skull and crossbones along with the words “Ban Fracking!” onto the courthouse building recently, though the City of Boulder decided to drop the charges. Contrast this to the interesting example out of Massachusetts. In 2014, two people used their lobster boat to block delivery of roughly 40,000 tons of coal to a power station. The District Attorney there, Sam Sutter, dropped all criminal charges, citing the threat of climate change, and made a deal with the two men to pay restitution. Will your office be a Ben Pearlman or a Sam Sutter?

MD: We’ll use our discretion to make sure we do justice in every case. There was a question before Earth Day about protesters going on open space. I think that reflects how I’m going to be as DA. I took office on March 1st, as District Attorney, and when I was asked about people trespassing on open space, I spoke with people about it, then I went to the Sheriff and law enforcement. Sheriff Pelle, law enforcement, and I agreed, they would not arrest or cite anyone who trespassed on open space, and my office would not prosecute. So then I let people who wanted to protest on open space on Earth Day know that information, so going in they knew what law enforcement was going to be doing, and what they could expect. I think that’s my role as DA, is to determine what justice is, and then to communicate that clearly to the community. So that’s the kind of discretion that I’ll utilize and allow people to express themselves freely, provided there’s no significant property damage, and no physical injury that results.

Let me put it this way, without being glib–I’m Michael Dougherty, so I’m going to use my discretion and make sure the right thing happens in cases. I think what the DA did in Massachusetts, which I’ve read a little bit about, I agree with what he did in that case.

Mike Foote:

That’s a statistic I’ve seen in several places from the CCJRC, and it really surprised me, because that has not been my experience in Boulder County. So, they must be getting their data from other counties, because I don’t think that’s the case here anecdotally. But DAs do have a lot of discretion. Part of what I propose, is that we divert them out of the system in the first place. If we have a drug felony case that comes in that’s simple possession, we shouldn’t be messing with that. We should be spending time on violent cases. Instead, divert it out of the system, get them treatment, so that someone else is dealing with it, but they’re dealing with the treatment aspect of it. I think that’s good all around. From a results oriented perspective, it’s better for the offender, but it’s also better from the perspective of an administrator, because a deputy DA should be spending their time on things that are more worthy of their time. I mean, it’s a non-violent drug offense, so if you have ten of those cases, you can either spend a half day on those cases, or you can spend a half day on your trial for a violent crime. There’s only so many hours in the day.

YS: FOLLOW UP: District Attorney V Activists: Boulder County Attorney Ben Pearlman directed police to issue a ticket to a man beaming an image of a skull and crossbones along with the words “Ban Fracking!” onto the courthouse building recently, though the City of Boulder decided to drop the charges. Contrast this to the interesting example out of Massachusetts. In 2014, two people used their lobster boat to block delivery of roughly 40,000 tons of coal to a power station. The District Attorney there, Sam Sutter, dropped all criminal charges, citing the threat of climate change, and made a deal with the two men to pay restitution. Will your office be a Ben Pearlman or a Sam Sutter?

MF: Yeah, I’m open to new approaches in this area, and when it comes to oil and gas again, if it turns out they are allowed to come in to Boulder County even more than they have, and there’s protest, then we’re going to be faced with this situation. And what I’ve said all along is I won’t prosecute people for asserting their First Amendment rights. That should be clear.

I’m open to all kinds of creative solutions and want to make sure that people’s voice is heard, and I think there’s a role that everyone in the community can play to make sure that oil and gas stays out of our community.

So I would say, I would be a lot more Sam Sutter than Ben Pearlman in that.

YS:  DAs across the country have been part of the war on drugs, a war that is part of what Michelle Alexander has dubbed “The New Jim Crow.” With the nation’s leaders seeming more willing to address addiction as an issue deserving compassion rather than, perhaps incarceration, what is the gap between such public sentiment and the rising number of felony drug  sentences?

Michael Dougherty:

I listen to Jeff Sessions talk about the war on drugs, and I feel like he’s taking us in a time machine back to 30 or 40 years ago, to a war that was fought and lost, and lost, and lost. I as DA will continue to make sure that we have a very progressive approach to drug related offenses and drug addiction.

YS follow up: Do you think the softening of the war on drugs has anything to do with the fact that the opioid epidemic is “overwhelmingly white?” Think back, for example, to the crack epidemic of the 80s, striking mostly African Americans and also coinciding with much harsher sentencing in response.

MD: I would hope not, but I think it’s a legitimate question, to be honest. I can tell you from my perspective that I look at the numbers. I look at the fact that we had 50,000 people die nationwide last year of opioid overdoses. The fact that two thirds of those people had obtained the drugs that they died from through some lawful prescription. I grew up as a prosecutor in New York City where drug dealing was done on street corners and dark alley ways. This is different. So to me, the motivation to now try to tackle the opioid, and now heroin epidemic, is purely related to public health and safety. And I think what you’ve asked is a legitimate question in terms of the amount of attention paid to it nationwide. I can only speak to what motivates me to do everything I can to stop it.

YS: With the legalization of marijuana and a perhaps softer touch on addiction to opioids, do you think those jailed before this change in ideology struck should be released from prison, and how would the Boulder DA’s office take action, or not, with regard to those already incarcerated for drug crimes?

MD: I’ve spoken out publicly on this. I believe that as a matter of fundamental fairness, that people that were convicted of crimes, years ago, that now, would otherwise be legal, should either be released, or should have their convictions vacated. I’ve shared that with the Defense Bar and will be rolling out something more official in the next two or three weeks, just explaining what the process is going to be. It could be through a motion to reconsider, filed with my office. We would be prepared to grant that provided it was only an offense that would otherwise be legal.

Mike Foote:

I don’t know other districts, but it just doesn’t match my experience in Boulder […] In filings, that doesn’t mean that there’s been more felonies that have led to prison. There’s been a lot of felony drug possession filings, but in Boulder, I think the vast majority result in a non-prison type of plea. So that just doesn’t match my experience.

YS Follow up: Do you think the softening of the war on drugs, such as it may be, has anything to do with the fact that the opioid epidemic is “overwhelmingly white?” Think back, for example, to the crack epidemic–

MF: I would hate to think so, but I understand, for example in The New Jim Crow, the author talks about that aspect, so I understand that thesis, that theory. I guess what I would say is that a lot of time has passed since then, and a lot of people realize that what was done as a result of the crack epidemic didn’t work. We have tons of people in jail, and the outcomes aren’t any better. We built lots of new jails, yet people coming out of the jails still had a 50% recidivism rate, and it just continued to climb and climb and climb. This is what we talked about at the state legislature so much—why are we incarcerating these people, and what really gets people to understand the problem is how much money is being spent. So it appeals to folks on both sides of the aisle. I think there’s the benefit of retrospect, looking back and seeing how a lot of the country tried to deal with the crack epidemic and the war on drugs then and realizing it just didn’t work. So are we going to repeat the same mistakes, or are we going to try to go a different direction? That’s where we are right now.

YS: With the legalization of marijuana and a perhaps softer touch on addiction to opioids, do you think those jailed before this change in ideology struck should be released from prison, and how would the Boulder DA’s office take action, or not, with regard to those already incarcerated for drug crimes?MF: The passage of Amendment 64 was six years ago, so I’d be really surprised if someone was still in prison on a simple drug charge six years later. Certainly now, a simple drug charge doesn’t even have that long of a possible sentence. But prior to 2013, when we imposed new drug sentencing schemes, something that I voted for, maybe the maxf for a drug charge was six years for a straight F4 (4th degree felony), so the time is come and gone for that kind of question now, I think. But I do think we should be open to a sentence renegotiation if something like that were presented to us.

YS:  Outgoing DA Garnett did an interview with the former editor of the Daily Camera, Dave Krieger, who said: “Supporters of the camping ban point out that taxpayers fund public spaces and if they’re going to be usable by families and children, you have to be able to move homeless people off of them.” DA Garnett responded, saying “Yes. Totally agree.” How would you have responded?

Michael Dougherty:

So I think we, as a community, have come a long way in how we treat and interact with the homeless population. And you’ve been a tremendous advocate for the homeless. I understand that the question presented points out that the public safety and further interaction with the people from the public, whether they’re homeless or not, there should be safe spaces for people to be. But I don’t think that people have to be moved off those spaces. So I disagree with the question. I would have said that we should increase the amount of community resources available, and we should do more to help people get back on their feet, as opposed to talking about moving them off of spaces. Especially when this question does not include any conduct by the homeless individual that requires them to be moved off. In other words, if this [question] included the guys urinating in the creek, or he’d just threatened someone, or something happened that would mandate them being moved, then I might have a different answer. We should be doing everything we can to increase the resources available to the homeless. I think the question leaves out the community responsibility to do so, and I know there are a lot of people doing good work in that area. But also, there should be more conduct than that question reflects, before people are getting moved out of the space.

Mike Foote:

First of all, I think that, when it comes to camping bans, that’s not a state law. It’s a city ordinance. And so, that’s going to be mostly a city question. And I have to admit, I’m kind of happy about that, because I don’t think we should be dealing with that. I don’t think we should be dealing with camping bans. I don’t think it’s something our folks should be spending a lot of time on. If the bigger question is what to do about the homeless, then that’s just a much bigger discussion, and one that I wish I had the answer to. If I had the answer to and it worked, I would try to patent it and go around and make a lot of money advising cities and counties and states about how to deal with it. It’s such a multi-faceted issue. To the extent we would be dealing with trespass, which is a misdemeanor under state law, then I would try to dispose of any case as quickly as possible. I just don’t think it’s anything we should be putting people in jail for. And I would tell police agencies that that’s how we would be handling those cases.

YS:  The FBI, at a time when social media is rife with videos of police abuse and killing of African Americans, has warned of the rise in “Black Identity Extremists” or B.I.Es. This appears to convey that challenging police disparities in behavior against people of color is somehow illegal. Do you think such a view is legitimate?

Michael Dougherty:

This is the first I’ve ever heard of B.I.E., to be honest. But to answer your question, I don’t think people should be labeled in a manner that makes it more difficult to express their views. And I think until they commit some criminal act that they should be free to express their views in any manner they believe appropriate. I would say, I’ve worked with outstanding men and women in law enforcement throughout my career. I’ve also had the duty of prosecuting police officers. For example, I prosecuted a police officer who smashed a Middle Eastern man in the face with a police radio, because the man was selling photos of the 911 attacks. I prosecuted as a special prosecutor here in Boulder, Detective Jack Gardner, who had assisted an internet predator in avoiding apprehension. And given the detectives relationship with Stan Garnett and the Office, Stan asked me to take that case as a special prosecutor. And I prosecuted the internet predator, who pled guilty. The point being, police officers should be held responsible to the same laws that we all are, and that’s where integrity comes in.

Mike Foote:

Not really. I mean, we have people exercising their First amendment rights, and their desire to get the message out that they want to convey. These particular people want to challenge police behavior, and they have every right to do that. So, I don’t see it as legitimate.

YS:  Diversity within the profession of lawyer is particularly low (see here). The ABA, for example, lists 85% of practicing attorneys in 2017 as white, 65% as male. Does the Boulder DA’s office reflect such numbers, and what steps will you be taking to help make the legal field more accessible and attractive to marginalized groups?

Michael Dougherty:

I’ve always believed that no-one should come to the courthouse and see that everyone in the courtroom is one race, and it’s not theirs. Because they leave with the perception, if not the reality, that the system is not as fair as it should be. In Jefferson County over the last five years, what I started doing was sending letters to the affinity groups and minority groups at the law schools and the bar association requesting they let us come in and talk. So DU, for example, had me meet with students every year. We pitched it [on the second try] as, “do you have concerns about prosecutors? Come talk about all these things with us.” We saw an immediate increase in the number of applications there, just because those discussions were so open. I think people realized the mission of district attorney is to do justice and to do the right thing. The other thing I’d mention, implicit bias is an issue for us in the legal system. So, for example, two years ago, I was training 70 prosecutors in Jefferson County. And I asked them, how many of you think bias exists in the criminal justice system, by show of hands? Every hand in the room went up. Then I asked, how many of you have ever acted with bias in how you’ve handled a case? And not one hand went up. I think that really signifies the challenge we have and the importance of identifying implicit bias. A great thing about that discussion with my staff at JeffCo was, as a result, we brought a keynote speaker in for the statewide conference to speak on implicit bias.

YS Follow up: Becoming aware is one thing, getting exposed to speakers and taking those [implicit bias] tests are all important, but it’s so much self work, self critical work that, you know, ultimately I think it has to come from people’s motivation to do better once they realize they’re not where they thought they were.MD: Right. And I think, part of it is self work and self awareness, but also, you know,  prosecutors in my office took the job because they believe in doing the right thing. So if they see data, that seems to indicate that there’s some bias in the system, at one point or another–either the filing of charges, what charges are being filed, plea offers, sentencing, restorative justice programs being offered–our staff will scrutinize those numbers, because they want to do the right thing. So I think the data also helps us in that effort.

Mike Foote:

I think the practicing attorneys in the Boulder DAs office is pretty close to 50/50 male/female. It may be off [by] one or two [people]. And it should be 50/50, I mean, that’s the makeup of the population. So I think we’re doing fine there. As far as ethnic diversity, that’s more challenging. I know there’s been a number of attorneys that have come through, some have been minorities, some have not. And many of those have left, they go on to different things. There’s two aspects to it: one is trying to show the minority attorneys that the Boulder DA’s office is a great place to work and that they want to work here, then also to retain them once they are hired. Those are two different discussions, but I would be aggressive in both. I think it’s very important for us to have a diverse staff, and that includes diverse attorneys. We have to go out and aggressively recruit, just like law firms do. And also, make sure that we have better retention once they’re hired.

YS:  Are there any areas of issue or concern that you’re interested in tackling or addressing that we haven’t talked about?

Michael Dougherty:

I will say, being sworn in on March 1st is by far the greatest honor of my twenty years as a prosecutor. To be the district attorney in the community in which my family and I have lived ever since moving to Colorado is just a tremendous honor. It’s especially exciting because the two things I’m passionate about are public safety and criminal justice reform. I think in Boulder, especially now, it’s the absolute right time for me to bring those priorities as district attorney to this office. It is a terrific office. My transition has been incredibly positive and smooth, which was really important to me. For the immigrant community, for all the victims in the cases we’re handling, and for the staff themselves, I wanted to really make sure the transition was a positive one. Staff has been more enthusiastic and positive than I ever could have hoped for, so I feel really fortunate for that. I think people in Boulder want to see a progressive, innovative leader at the DA’s Office. Yes, people want their kids to be safe and, yes, we should be concerned about felony case filings and violent crimes going up. But we should [also] be fairly aggressive in coming up with programs that help those struggling with mental health issues. That help people with drug addiction, and enhance public safety through criminal justice reform. I never view the two as mutually exclusive. I look at them as very much connected, if you do it the right way. So being district attorney, and I hope to be DA for many years to come—that’s my commitment if the voters will allow me to get there—I’m excited about the leadership and trial experience, the integrity and the vision that I bring to the office.

Mike Foote:

I think that the Boulder District Attorney should be a community leader, and be responsive to the community. And that’s how we will have a very effective office. Being responsive to the community, for example, is making sure that the immigrant community is protected. And that’s something that the prior District Attorney went out of his way to convey, that you can come forward, we’re not ICE. I think that was a good read of the community’s concern. And that’s something that I would continue, and also make better, because it’s responsive to our community. Being responsive to the community doesn’t mean that, if the community doesn’t think you should prosecute a case, or does think you should prosecute a case, but the evidence isn’t there, that you do that. As a DA, you have ethical standards, and you have your conscience, and your duty is to do justice. The community wants to remain safe, first and foremost. So, of course, violent crimes, sexual assaults, gun crimes, those will always be priorities, crimes against the elderly will be a priority, any kind of vulnerable group, [including] immigrant protection and environmental crimes, those will all be a priority, because that matches the community’s priorities. On the other hand, things that won’t be a priority will include things you were asking about, like drug cases, where we’re going to try to divert those cases. It’s an interesting balance with the DA position. You have to be responsive to the community, but also be, in some ways, a little bit shielded from that too. You want to be able to use independent judgement. So that’s the kind of philosophy I’ll bring to the DA’s office when I’m District Attorney, is that kind of community responsiveness.

Boulder County’s primary election is on June 26th. For information on voting, candidate lists, and more, see the Boulder County Primary Information webpage here.

While Yellow Scene did not endorse any candidates in the primaries for the Governor’s race, we are agreeing with Darren O’Connor’s endorsement of Michael Dougherty. With a nationwide need to reform our Justice System, Mr Dougherty’s focus on alternative sentencing, reducing charges, mental health programs, fair sentencing, Restorative Justice, and Community Policing we feel he brings a refreshing and much needed approach to our criminal system.

The post The Boulder District Attorney Race: Interviews appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

The extreme violence that recently flared, again, leading to the tragic murder of Heather Heyer at the Charlottesville Unite the Right white supremacy rally, has the ACLU and many others pondering just how far First Amendment protections should extend. After suing Charlottesville on behalf of the organizers, who had spoken openly about bringing guns and having the support of the police, the ACLU made a seismic shift in policy: “ACLU Will No Longer Defend Hate Groups Protesting With Firearms”.

Make no mistake, hate is what groups like Proud Boys, Unite the Right, and others that cluster beneath the innocuous sounding moniker of “alt-right” are about. The father of one of the outed white supremacists shared that his son stated that fascists were fine with freedom of speech: “We’ll just throw you in an oven. . . .” Sit with that. Ruminate on it.

Photo: Jorday Yager, Huffpost.

Wrapping Nazism in a shiny new label does not negate the evil implied in what once again confronts us, challenging us to ask: how do we tolerate the speech of the intolerant whose goal is racial genocide? Is genocide a reasonable free speech position? When they show up to college campuses demanding platforms and speaking the language of identity politics to dehumanize transgender folks or malign Black actresses that they compare to apes, the inevitable eventually occurs, as it did at University of Washington before Milo Yiannopoulos spoke: the shooting of a self-identified and unarmed socialist.

The irony of a Milo supporter claiming he feared for his life from an unarmed protester was thick, but lost on supporters such as College Republicans. The police, when the shooter turned himself in, took the attempted murderer’s statement and released him.

The discussion of freedom of speech must acknowledge who wields power in the U.S. It must acknowledge potential harms, including very real and present dangers that targets of white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ hate speech are subjected to. Police defend the rights of white supremacists to assemble, while pounding with iron fist people of color who raise their voices. In Charlottesville, only six white supremacists were arrested (including Heather Heyer’s murderer); in Standing Rock, it was over 750; in Ferguson, over 150. Speech, we cannot ignore, is protected more if you’re white and using dog whistle politics to ignite your base to violence, violence that includes the shooting described above; violence that includes the stabbing of two men in Portland, OR, who confronted a known white supremacist threatening Muslim women; violence that found release in Dylan Roof’s murder of nine African Americans who welcomed him in their church.

When white people show up armed, such as when the Bundy clan took possession of federal property, the law and public too often frames their violence as the act of patriots. When marginalized communities stand up for their need for basic necessities, police armed with military gear arrest them and the public screams RIOT! While Bundy walks free from court, poor Black youth are forced through a well-worn pipeline for demanding justice: directly into the mass incarceration system. Freedom of speech has a racial bias we must address in America.

The post White Versus Rights appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Photo credit: Darren O’ Connor

The City of Boulder has failed its citizens experiencing homelessness, but it is all too apparent that it has achieved exactly its goal: eliminating emergency and supportive services in an effort to push homeless people out of town. It has likely pleased the portion of the business community who want pressure put on homeless looking individuals so they will leave the downtown area. This comes in the form of an estimated $315,000 in extra funding to the police, with direction to sweep areas where homeless people congregate. Concurrently, funding for day services and overnight accommodation, both implemented at a very low cost thanks to the contributions of the faith community that hosted them, was cut before a new so-called Homeless Working Group submitted their recent report to the City.

The harsh, negative impact felt by people experiencing homelessness in Boulder has been immediate and counter to the intention of some on City Council who appear willing to provide services in the future to Boulder residents. I documented the arrest of a person panhandling at Broadway and Canyon just after the directive was given to police. The person’s identity who was arrested was shared with me by a friend recently, who shared that the gentleman is a Vietnam veteran who has lived in Boulder for years. A second arrest observation quickly followed, during which I confused a German Shepherd released by an officer for a police K-9 unit. It turned out to belong to one of the people the officers arrested. The man I witnessed be harshly arrested showed signs of going into seizure and complained of a bad heart and back. He was on a legal prescription of opiates and apparently gave confusing information when  questioned, mixing up the order of his social security number—which, incidentally, is illegal for law enforcement to request (see Colorado Revised Statues 16-3-103: “A peace officer shall not require any person who is stopped pursuant to this section to produce or divulge such person’s social security number.”). The man was charged, in part, as a possible result of prescription-drug induced confusion, for criminal impersonation. This is a class six felony in Colorado.

Confusions is the operative term as to what police are directed to do right now. Though Boulder has a camping ordinance that prohibits sleeping in public with anything other than one’s clothes for cover, I recently slept outside in a very public space after the police were directed to sweep areas where homeless people camp. Laying down in an area with approximately six other people, I didn’t see a police officer from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m.. It’s unclear, then, how strictly police are enforcing the camping ordinance. It may be that because Boulder is, by the acts of City Staff, responsible for there being no place for homeless people to sleep within City limits this summer, that police have been instructed not to issue citations for camping. Cities that have no shelter services and issue camping citations, have been open to defenses asserting violation of the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause of the Eighth Amendment. Courts continue to wrestle with the challenge of acknowledging people must sleep and that cities simultaneously have an interest in not allowing people to sleep anywhere they want. Boulder is currently smack in the middle of this legal grey area.

City Staff and some on Council, despite years of proof otherwise, appear to be banking on the misbelief that if life in Boulder is made hard enough for people experiencing homelessness, they will leave. With little other guidance than citation and arrest data, they believe most people using services or camping are travelers with no ties to the City. Being unsure of the truth of that belief has not kept them from instituting a policy that largely rests on police making life much more difficult for people experiencing homelessness. In doing so, City Staff ignore the constitutional right to travel, which Justice Stevens asserted in part provides “the right to be treated as a welcome visitor rather than an unfriendly alien.” The Supreme Court has also asserted in clear terms that “a State may no more try to fence out those indigents who seek . . . benefits than it may try to fence out indigents generally.”

The City of Boulder, having closed down homeless services and directed police to sweep areas people experiencing homelessness gather, is sending at least one clear message: Constitutional rights be damned, the City’s policy is that you are not welcome here.

The post Voices: Boulder to Homeless: No Help for You Here appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.