On March 28, the executive committee of the Boulder NAACP branch announced that it was dissolving. The message landed as both unexpected and, in some ways, inevitable. Tensions between the branch, city officials, and the police department had been building for years, culminating in disputes that left many relationships strained. While some community members were aware of ongoing disagreements, few anticipated the abrupt shuttering of the organization. 

In recent years, the City of Boulder has taken visible steps to align itself with marginalized communities, including the creation of a racial equity department and the launch of a “Reimagine Policing” initiative. Despite these efforts, the city now finds itself navigating a rupture with one of its most prominent civil rights organizations. The breakdown raises difficult questions: What went wrong? And how did efforts at collaboration give way to mutual distrust? 

Adding to the confusion was the way the local NAACP branch made its announcement, with no clear coordination or communication with state or national leadership. Within days, higher-level NAACP officials entered the public conversation to push back. In a March 31 Instagram Live, Colorado NAACP President Portia Prescott stated, “We have a Boulder branch that actually is thriving,” and emphasized that “the only body with authority to dissolve a chapter is the national board.” The public contradiction left many uncertain about the branch’s status and marked a rare instance of open disagreement between local and national leadership.

What is clear is that, within a matter of days, Boulder’s NAACP went from being a key player in the city’s civic landscape to being at odds with both the local government and the national organization. Through exclusive interviews, Yellow Scene Magazine is unpacking what led to this breakdown and what’s at stake for the community moving forward.

The Shadow of Elijah McClain

Any effort to understand this conflict must begin with the legacy of Elijah McClain.

In 2019, McClain died after being violently detained by Aurora police and injected with ketamine by paramedics. The incident sparked national outrage and led to lawsuits, criminal charges, and renewed demands for police reform.

At the time, Stephen Redfearn was a captain in the Aurora Police Department. Although he was not involved in the physical confrontation that led to Elijah McClain’s death, he was present during its aftermath and played a role in the administrative decisions that followed. Among those actions was the reclassification of the incident report—from “suspicious person” to “assault on officer.” While the change drew little attention at the time, it would become a focal point of controversy years later.

In October 2024, the Boulder NAACP published a press release criticizing City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde’s decision to promote Redfearn to Chief of Police. They described his alteration of the call log as tantamount to a “cover-up” and emphasized his connection to the McClain case:

“He was the Nightshift Duty Commander overseeing the officers responsible for Elijah McClain’s death, as well as the leader of a brutal assault with chemical weapons against violin vigil participants honoring Elijah McClain’s memory.”

By that point, Redfearn had served three years in Boulder and had acted as interim chief. To city officials, he was a seasoned candidate with local experience, and they continued to support him despite the criticism. Redfearn defended his reclassification of the logs as a procedural decision made after speaking with the officers involved in the incident. According to him, the change aligned with department policy. But to members of the Boulder NAACP, it reflected a deeper cultural concern: a willingness to adjust official records in ways that could obscure or minimize misconduct.

Their concern extended beyond a single form or call log. Redfearn’s tenure in a department with a well-documented history of excessive force raised broader questions about the values and priorities he might bring to leadership. For the Boulder NAACP, this was not just a matter of personnel. It was a matter of trust, transparency, and the kind of leadership the city was choosing to endorse.

The Meeting That Changed Everything

In July 2024, before the press release, Boulder’s NAACP hosted a public town hall on criminal justice, where they publicly discussed their concerns about Redfearn. City officials responded by proposing a private mediated conversation to repair trust and build a collaborative relationship.

It didn’t go as planned.

According to those present, what began as a cautious conversation quickly unraveled after Redfearn commented on the NAACP president’s facial expression. She pushed back, asserting her right to respond and process information in whatever way came naturally. Other members jumped in, calling the comment a form of hyper-surveillance and an example of racial policing in interpersonal spaces.

The exchange derailed the meeting. Criminal Justice Chair Darren O’Connor, who attended, later described Redfearn’s reaction: “It seemed like Redfearn lost it and refused to talk for a while. A mediator actually told him, ‘This is the kind of thing that gets people killed.’”

In the aftermath, NAACP members left the meeting convinced Redfearn lacked the temperament and perspective to lead. Redfearn, by contrast, was reportedly frustrated and blindsided by the confrontation.

The Fallout

Unbeknownst to city officials, a member of the NAACP had recorded the meeting. Shortly after, the group informed the city: if Redfearn was promoted, they would consider releasing the video. To the NAACP, this was a matter of accountability. They felt a responsibility to the community to release evidence they believed demonstrated that Redfearn was unfit to act as the Chief of Police. However, the city viewed the move as an underhanded threat to use a private conversation as leverage. What began as a chance to rebuild trust now appeared, to some officials, as bad faith.

From that point forward, collaboration gave way to confrontation. City leaders began referring to the Boulder NAACP as uncooperative and untrustworthy—no longer a partner but a problem.

In a public statement, city manager Rivera-Vandermyde wrote:

“What I cannot tolerate is unethical behavior by people who purport to stand for progressive community values but then act in intentional ways that break trust, undermine public processes, and distract us from our collective mission.”

The NAACP did not back down. In an interview with the Denver Post,  O’Connor responded:

“It’s very troubling that the city manager is more upset that we recorded her than about what her now-selected police chief had to say. She’s more worried about the fact we’re sharing that information than about what she heard, which was disqualifying.”

In the weeks that followed, Rivera-Vandermyde would file a formal complaint with national NAACP leadership. As a result, the Boulder branch was required to submit all public communications for pre-approval to avoid what national leaders called “inflammatory or unsubstantiated rhetoric.” Local leaders rejected the characterization that their communications were unsubstantiated but agreed to comply. As national leadership became more hands-on, city officials allegedly became openly hostile.

Chief Redfearn allegedly made disparaging remarks about NAACP members and reportedly targeted O’Connor’s law license.

“He claimed I had gone to the media, that I was acting as an attorney, and that I was asserting privilege and confidentiality about who recorded the meeting—or whether I did it myself,” O’Connor told Yellow Scene. “He provided a link to a completely unrelated article from two years ago,[…] where I wasn’t mentioned at all. […] He submitted that as proof to get my bar license revoked or sanctioned.”

He continued:

“He may have done it willfully and maliciously to try and get my life taken away […] in retaliation for our First Amendment activities.”

O’Connor also recounted a separate incident in which Redfearn reportedly told others he had flipped him off at a candidate forum, an accusation he said he only heard secondhand but came across to him as needlessly petty and directed. Both incidents pushed O’Connor to file complaints with the city manager. Both, he said, were dismissed as unactionable.

To the NAACP members, these attempts to undermine his legal standing were more than personal. They represented a dangerous trend: the normalization of silencing dissent not through dialogue but through institutional retaliation. 

NAACP President Annett James told Yellow Scene, 

“We were systematically undermined by city officials. I think that’s what we want our community to understand. […] This community just does not allow one to disagree and have that discussion in the public sphere.”

In the weeks following the failed mediation, the situation only continued to unravel. Darren O’Connor was suspended by national leadership after publishing an op-ed criticizing the city’s policing transparency dashboard. The official reason: the piece was not cleared by the national office and was considered “inflammatory and unsubstantiated.”

O’Connor disagreed with that characterization.

“You know, I had listened directly to Redfearn,” he told Yellow Scene. “What I wrote about was true. And I think the NAACP had just decided that, despite them saying the restrictions were narrow, pretty much anything we were going to put out was going to be flagged.”

O’Connor, President James, and VP Jude Landsman all said the national restrictions went far beyond avoiding defamation. To them, it felt like silencing.

Following O’Connor’s suspension, the Boulder branch entered a series of tense meetings with national leadership. According to members, the message was unmistakable: the national office had no intention of supporting the Boulder branch in its fight for transparency or in defending it against retaliation from the city.

“Everyone was completely dismayed and in disbelief,”  said President James. 

“ think that it was the straw that led the Executive Committee of the NAACP, the county branch, to see for themselves that basically, we had no rights, no opportunity to express ourselves. […] There was just no due process.”

No one from the national office, members said, reached out to hear Boulder’s side.

“There was absolutely zero effort to say, ‘Okay, what’s going on in Boulder? Tell us what happened.’ There was nothing.”

Instead of mediating or cooling tensions, the national office seemed focused solely on controlling the branch’s messaging. In the aforementioned Instagram Live session, Prescott dismissed news of the Boulder branch’s possible dissolution as “fake news.” The legal or administrative questions surrounding the branch’s future were arguably less urgent than the pragmatic ones: Why wasn’t the national NAACP standing up for its local leaders, and what guidance did it have for the community?

The Boulder branch told Yellow Scene they felt the national office had been weaponized by the city to paint them as uncredible and unruly. They argued that the assertion of control from above failed to grasp that the decision to dissolve came not just from pressure but from disillusionment. After meeting after meeting with national leadership, it became clear there was no real support system in place, no path forward where their advocacy would be protected.

The NAACP is an organization that has experienced growing pains as it transitions into the modern era. Reports of declining membership and struggles to remain relevant have plagued it in recent years. Likewise, past issues with local coordination and support have led to public and destructive episodes similar to what we’re now seeing in Boulder. In 2013, NAACP members in Connecticut criticized national leadership for caring more about “brand names and fundraising” than about the health of its local chapters. That comment followed a series of branch seizures, forced resignations, and restructurings—many of which, critics argued, could have been avoided with proper support.

As recently as last May, D.C. broadcaster Roland Martin interviewed half a dozen former NAACP local leaders, each describing their own experiences with what they saw as mistreatment and villainization by the national office.

Former NAACP president Betty Williams recalled:

“My branch was threatened. […] If they said anything in support of me, the entire branch would be shut down. So there are these bully tactics meant to silence people.”

These stories don’t amount to bulletproof evidence of wrongdoing, but they do offer context. They position Boulder’s experience not as an isolated incident but as part of a pattern of national leadership failing to lead and protect its grassroots advocates.

Are Boulder branch members beyond critique? Of course not. At times, they may have overplayed their hand, and the decision to record and later threaten to release footage of the mediated conversation warrants scrutiny. But that’s not the full story. So far, little attention has been paid to how leadership at both the city and national level contributed to the escalation and, ultimately, the implosion of this conflict. 

National leadership offered little in the way of guidance, focusing instead on punitive measures. They seemed uninterested in the specifics of the branch’s concerns about Redfearn or transparency in community policing. The city, meanwhile, allegedly responded to dissent with retaliation verbal harassment, threats against legal licenses, and what branch members described as a concerted attempt to delegitimize them entirely. These incidents were brought to the city’s attention and brushed off as unactionable.

City Manager Nuria Vandermyde has said it was never the city’s desire to see the branch close. But intentions aside, it’s hard to ignore the throughline between the city’s actions and the current situation. When it became clear that the branch would not be easily controlled, both the city and national office took steps that, intentionally or not, undermined the branch’s ability to function.

This is the crux of why Boulder leaders told Yellow Scene they felt dissolution was necessary. They feared the city’s endgame was to turn them into a symbolic entity, something that bore the name of the NAACP but had none of the autonomy or power to challenge real systems of harm. Given the city’s hostility and the national office’s dismissiveness, it’s hard not to see where that concern came from.

What’s Been Lost

Amid the political battle between the city, the local branch, and the national office, the biggest loss may be to the community itself.

The Boulder NAACP organized voter registration drives, legal aid workshops, and educational forums. In a political climate where DEI efforts are increasingly under attack, the collapse of a local civil rights institution leaves a visible and painful gap. Beyond their political advocacy, the branch hosted annual Freedom Fund celebrations, supported Black-owned businesses, and threw graduation parties for Black students. They were more than just activists—they were community builders.

Still, President James and her peers insist their work is far from finished.

“We’re not quitting,” she said. “We intend to continue, with or without the NAACP name.”

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The post Inside the Collapse of Boulder NAACP appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

March 28, 2025

Dear Beloved Members, Donors, and Friends of NAACP Boulder County Branch,

It is with profound sadness that we announce the dissolution of the NAACP Boulder County Branch.

Our decision comes in the wake of persistent retaliation from the City of Boulder. The city manager, police leaders, and associated governmental entities have actively sought to suppress and undermine our efforts toward racial equity. These tactics, well-known for their authoritarian and racist nature, have included division, co-opting, isolation, spreading false rumors, character assassination, and threats of legal action. The aim has been clear: to remove the leadership of NAACP Boulder and reshape our Branch into a powerless symbolic entity that serves the city’s interests rather than the community’s—one that provides mere performative gestures, a prop for inclusion, rather than real empowerment. The fact that Boulder City officials would and did so brazenly involve themselves in the governance of NAACP Boulder County, a unit of the oldest civil rights organization in the country, is truly outrageous and should deeply trouble all of us.

The struggle for racial justice demands that we not be silent and complicit about things that matter.

We faced a relentless campaign from the city manager and police chief to discredit and undermine and ultimately destroy our Branch, because of our refusal to support the promotion of Stephen Redfearn to police chief or remain silent. In his poignant letter, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” civil rights icon John Lewis encapsulates our plight perfectly. final letter to the world

Regrettably, our attempts to stand firm against these pressures resulted in NAACP National succumbing to the threat of legal action from the city. They issued cease-and-desist letters, demanding we refrain from what they termed “unsubstantiated and inflammatory statements” directed at Redfearn, the Boulder Police Department, and City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde. This language mirrors the accusations from city officials, and to date, we have not been informed of any infractions on our part; we have consistently operated in accordance with the mission of the National NAACP.

Recently, our criminal justice chair faced suspension from the National NAACP after authoring a guest opinion simply to inform our community about a forthcoming police data dashboard, available here. This was followed by a dictate to appoint an overseer for all substantive decisions within our branch that made it all too clear that our ability to carry out the mission had been compromised, effectively placing our Branch under impositions by the city with national enforcement backing it. This crosses a line from the empowered legacy we sought to uphold in our community to unacceptably stifling our voices. While NAACP Boulder County will no longer exist, our commitment to safety, justice, and equality will grow stronger.

It is precisely because of the work we have done with your necessary and greatly appreciated support that our decision to dissolve the Branch lands heavy for all of us. We appreciate your support and interest in making Boulder County safer and more equitable for all members of the community. Our unanimous decision was made because we, [you] would prefer to let this great local Branch conclude rather than to exist as merely a façade, unable to take the necessary actions to hold our city and county accountable. With this dissolution, we call upon city officials and the National NAACP to be held responsible for their actions.

In solidarity and power,
NAACP Boulder County Branch Unit #40AB-B

We aspire to build an inclusive community grounded in equality where all can exercise their civil and human rights without fear and discrimination.

The post Dissolution of the NAACP Boulder Branch appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

Editor’s Note: Press releases are provided to Yellow Scene Magazine. In an effort to keep our community informed, we publish some press releases in whole.

Haven’t heard about this groundbreaking exhibit yet? Well, now’s your moment to connect with the personal histories of Boulder’s Historic and thriving Black Community.

Wednesday, June 19th @ 1:00 pm

Registration is not required for this private event.

However, a quick email letting us know you intend to participate is appreciated at secretary.naacpbouldercounty@gmail.com

Please include your name and the number of people you’re bringing with you, include yourself, as the tour caps at 30 participants. Our tour will be led by beloved Branch Historian, Minister Glenda Strong Robinson. Don’t miss out!

Do you belong to a club or organization interested in scheduling a guided tour?

Are you a business or corporation looking to snag some DEIA credits, or, more meaningfully, to introduce your partners and employees to the fullness of the Boulder Community? There’s a link for that! Book your private tour today!

The post Juneteenth NAACP Members Only guided tour of the Museum of Boulder’s “Proclaiming Black History” exhibit! appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By Natalie Skowlund, KUNC, AP Storyshare

Events

The post Kick off Black History Month with these area events starting February 1 appeared first on Yellow Scene Magazine.

By John Herrick, Boulder Reporting Lab (Via AP Storyshare)

A high-profile dispute is brewing in Boulder connected with the ongoing trial over the death of Elijah McClain.

Boulder’s deputy police chief, Steve Redfearn, has hired a lawyer in response to allegations from a local attorney related to the case. McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, died in 2019 in Aurora after he was forcibly arrested while unarmed and given a powerful sedative by paramedics.

Redfearn’s decision came after the NAACP Boulder County published letters calling for his resignation.
Redfearn was a captain with the Aurora Police Department on the night police confronted McClain. He arrived on the scene as McClain was being transported to the hospital. In September 2021, Redfearn left the Aurora Police Department, where he had worked for 22 years, and joined Boulder’s department.

Last month, he was subpoenaed as a witness by state prosecutors in the first trial over the death of McClain. During his testimony, Redfearn said he changed the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) report after the officers’ encounter with McClain from “suspicious person” to “assault on a police officer.” He modified the report after speaking with officers who were on the scene but before the completion of any investigation into the incident.

It is now established fact that McClain did not assault officers on the night he was forcibly arrested.
Even so, the code used to describe the incident that night does not appear to have played a role in any of the subsequent investigations into McClain’s death. Instead, investigators have relied on body camera footage and interviews with police officers, among other evidence.

But in light of this testimony, three members of the NAACP Boulder County sent a letter to city officials on Oct. 1, alleging Redfearn’s decision to change the dispatch records “reeked of a cover up.” The organization is circulating a petition calling for Redfearn to resign or be removed. The petition has not been approved by NAACP headquarters, Portia Prescott, the president of the NAACP Colorado, Montana, Wyoming State Area Conference, told Boulder Reporting Lab. Such approval is standard protocol under the organization’s bylaws, Prescott said.

In an interview with Boulder Reporting Lab, Redfearn said he changed the dispatch code because an officer informed him that McClain had attempted to grab his gun. Investigators have since found no evidence to confirm this claim after reviewing body camera footage. Redfearn said there was no specific dispatch code for this type of incident, so he chose the next “closest thing,” based on the information he received at the time.

“There was no intent on my part to cover anything up,” Redfearn said. “My changing that code did not indicate that I believed that that happened. I was just doing it based on what was shared with me.”

Once Redfearn learned McClain had lost consciousness during his encounter with officers, he said he called Aurora’s detective commander and requested an investigation by a critical incident team. That team included representatives from the Aurora Police Department, the Denver Police Department and the 17th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, according to the City of Aurora. This request prompted the first investigation into the officers’ encounter with McClain within hours.

“I did quite the opposite on scene of what someone would do if they were intending to try to cover something up,” Redfearn said.

In an Oct. 22 letter to community members also calling for Redfearn to resign, Darren O’Connor, chair of the criminal justice committee for NAACP Boulder County, cited a lawsuit that alleged Redfearn and dozens of other officials used excessive force in their response to a June 2020 vigil for McClain outside the Aurora Municipal Center. The vigil included clashes between demonstrators and police wearing riot gear. O’Connor alleged the response from police is an example of Redfearn’s “history of violence against peaceful civilians.”

The defendants denied many of the allegations and settled the case by agreeing to pay the five plaintiffs $750,000. Redfearn told Boulder Reporting Lab he was one of hundreds of officers called to the scene that day, and he was following orders from a command post. He said he deployed pepper spray when three men tried to take a nightstick from a sheriff’s deputy.

In their letters, O’Connor and the NAACP have highlighted Redfearn’s decades-long career with the Aurora Police Department and the omission of this experience in his city biography. A 2021 state civil rights probe found the Aurora Police Department “has a pattern and practice of racially biased policing, using excessive force, and failing to record required information when it interacts with the community.” The report was published the same month Redfearn joined the City of Boulder.

“[City officials] knew that if they put on his bio he had 22 years of experience in Aurora that eyebrows might go up,” O’Connor, who has been leading the calls for Redfearn’s resignation, told Boulder Reporting Lab.

Redfearn said he is proud of his career in law enforcement. While in Aurora, he was among the officers who responded to the 2012 Aurora movie theater shooting in which the gunman killed 12 people.

“I’ve had to overcome a lot to get to where I am in this profession,” he said. “I’m very proud of the work that I’m doing.”

In light of the public allegations circulating against him, Redfearn said he has hired Stan Garnett, a former Boulder County district attorney, in his personal capacity to help him “weigh any options going forward.” He has not taken any legal action, but said the allegations against him have been “disparaging” and “borderline, if not flat out, defamation.”

“In this case, mischaracterization and sometimes just flat out inaccurate remarks just aren’t helpful. And so I felt like I needed to have some protection,” Redfearn said.

He added that he wants to focus on implementing the department’s “reimagine policing” plan. “Maybe we can continue to move on with all the good work and this can stop being such a huge distraction,” he said.

Garnett is representing Steve Rosenblum, a former candidate for the Boulder City Council, in a defamation lawsuit against five local political organizers. Earlier this year, a judge dismissed the allegations against all but one of the defendants. Part of the case was tossed out under a Colorado law that aims to prevent frivolous lawsuits.

Dispatch reports are intended for internal record-keeping, Redfearn said. But the information documented in the report from the night of McClain’s encounter with officers emerged as one of the first official public records generated by police following their encounter with McClain.

With four years of hindsight, the suggestion that McClain assaulted an officer is shocking to many, given what is now known through body camera footage, investigations by law enforcement agencies and an independent investigation commissioned by the Aurora City Council.

The investigations into McClain’s death came under heightened scrutiny when his case received renewed attention during the 2020 protests over the police killings of Black people. In 2021, a forensic pathologist amended McClain’s autopsy report to change his cause of death from “undetermined” to “complications of ketamine administration following forcible restraint.” State lawmakers, meanwhile, enacted police reforms, including a ban on carotid chokeholds, following protests in which McClain’s name was chanted among the many who have died while in police custody.

The incident began on the evening of Aug. 24, 2019, when officers responded to a call about a man who was “acting weird.” They confronted McClain, a massage therapist, as he was walking home from a convenience store. Within seconds of asking him to stop, one officer grabbed him by the arm. An officer restrained him twice using a chokehold. An officer threatened to have a dog bite him if he kept “messing around.” After paramedics arrived on the scene, they injected him with ketamine. He later died in the hospital.

In November 2019, the former district attorney for the 17th Judicial District, Dave Young, declined to file charges against the three officers. It was later determined by an independent investigation that the Aurora Police Department’s investigation “revealed significant weaknesses in the Department’s accountability systems” and was “flawed and failed to meaningfully develop a fulsome record.”

The current trial is the result of a grand jury indictment that followed an investigation by Attorney General Phil Weiser, prompted by an executive order from Gov. Jared Polis. State prosecutors charged three Aurora officers for manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide for their role in McClain’s death, specifically the use of “violent subdual and restraint” techniques, according to the indictment.

In October 2023, a jury issued a split decision, convicting one officer and acquitting the other. Trials involving the third officer and two paramedics are ongoing.

O’Connor and other members of the NAACP Boulder County have suggested they made their allegations as part of a broader effort over several years to seek accountability for the officers who confronted McClain.

“What we know is it’s in conformity with the rest of [the Aurora Police Department’s] pattern and practice of changing the history of what actually happened,” O’Connor said, referring to the dispatch report changes. “It was a cover up.”

City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde has come to Redfearn’s defense, arguing the allegations against him are a “misrepresentation” of the facts.

“This was merely an administrative task to ensure that the dispatch call accurately reflected the information that was given to him at the time by the on-scene sergeants,” Rivera-Vandermyde said in a statement about the code change. She added, “The allegations shared with us from NAACP Boulder County are inaccurate and could damage the relationships that Chief Maris Herold and Deputy Chief Stephen Redfearn have worked hard to build in this community.”

Separately, in a recent email to councilmembers and city officials, Councilmember Mark Wallach said O’Connor’s campaign against Redfearn amounts to “performative outrage” and suggested it could harm the reputation of NAACP Boulder County.

Prescott, the president of the NAACP Colorado, Montana, Wyoming State Area Conference, said she did not know whether Redfearn’s decisions during his time as a captain in Aurora warrant his resignation.
“He has a scary background with Aurora. But now he’s making up for that,” she said. “He is testifying against the police. He is a witness for the attorney general.”

Prescott said a group of lawyers at NAACP headquarters should have reviewed the allegations before the Boulder branch called for his resignation. That is the standard protocol, she said.

“You know the resources we have at the D.C. and Baltimore offices to go investigate?” Prescott said. “It’s not a question of who’s right or who’s wrong. It’s a question of having many people behind you doing the homework and the fact finding.”

Martha Wilson, a former child welfare caseworker who was a founding member of the city’s Police Oversight Panel, said she has been following the trial from within the courtroom. She also attended the protests over McClain’s death in 2020. In the context of what is known now about the death of McClain, she said the decision to change the dispatch report was “disturbing.”

“That act is what criminalized him,” Wilson said. “There was so much unnecessary use of force that to then classify that as assaulting an officer is just — I don’t know how to reconcile that in my head.”

She is not calling for Redfearn to resign. Instead, Wilson said she would like to see reforms that require officers to take into account whether someone is on the spectrum and to add steps to the process of categorizing an incident as “assault on a police officer” in the dispatch reports.

“Those are two aspects where societal grief can help us to make better-informed decisions now,” she said.

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