Speaker 1: About the man who was just arrested for attempted murder
Speaker 1: for the shooting on two two five in Denver. Apparently
Speaker 1: the gentleman who had already been deported three times. He
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, when he was arrested for child sex
Speaker 1: assault charges. I said, lodged a detainer on him. The
Speaker 1: Denver Justice Center declined to honor the detainer and released
Speaker 1: him into the community instead. Ice caught him later and
Speaker 1: deported him after that. But we know that at some
Speaker 1: point he walked back across the southern border and now
Speaker 1: has perhaps murdered someone. The guy still in the hospital
Speaker 1: fighting for his life. So I just wanted to get
Speaker 1: that update. Another example of the things Democrats fight for
Speaker 1: in Colorado. Joining me now from the fourth Judicial District
Speaker 1: is DA Michael Allen, who reached out to me after
Speaker 1: the conversation with former police chief Paul Pasin about releasing
Speaker 1: criminals and seeing violent crime rise. Although DA Michael Allen,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's no connection at all between those two things,
Speaker 1: but then you sent an email and said, man, we're
Speaker 1: not even talking about what the lack of qualified immunity
Speaker 1: for police officers is doing. So welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: To have that conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thanks a lot, Mandy for having me on
Speaker 2: and having a chance to discuss this. I thought the
Speaker 2: conversation you had with Paul Paysen, I think it was
Speaker 2: a Tuesday or Wednesday. I thought it was really good.
Speaker 2: I happened to catch a big chunk of it. And
Speaker 2: one of the things that I think people have forgotten
Speaker 2: about is that Senate Bill twenty dash two seventeen, which
Speaker 2: was called Police Accountability. I think they had some other
Speaker 2: fancier name for it to make it sound like it
Speaker 2: was a good thing, but it has turned out to
Speaker 2: be a bad thing, and it really it was designed
Speaker 2: to remove qualified immunity protections from police officers who are
Speaker 2: out in the field making tough decisions every day, fighting
Speaker 2: crime and that kind of thing, and it really had
Speaker 2: a detrimental impact on law enforcement agencies around Colorado.
Speaker 1: Well, let's talk about what their qualified immunity did first,
Speaker 1: because I think a lot of people don't understand. They
Speaker 1: do know, like people understand, you can't sue government, right
Speaker 1: because government has always assumed to act in our best
Speaker 1: interest even when they're clearly not. So I can't sue
Speaker 1: government because they have what's called qualified immunity, which means
Speaker 1: they don't get sued because they're expected to do the
Speaker 1: right thing. For US cops had the same kinds of protections.
Speaker 1: What changed in that crime bill?
Speaker 2: So basically what changes It stripped that qualified immunity from
Speaker 2: police officers. As I said, they're making really tough decisions
Speaker 2: out in the field in real time and reacting to
Speaker 2: dynamic situations that are really dictated by a criminal behavior,
Speaker 2: and by removing qualified immunity, it just puts them personally
Speaker 2: liable for any decisions they made, which is a new
Speaker 2: thing in Colorado that had never been taken away before. Legislators,
Speaker 2: by the way, have immunity for the bills that they've
Speaker 2: passed because they're also weighing really tough things and they
Speaker 2: have to say some things maybe that they wouldn't say otherwise,
Speaker 2: or do things they wouldn't do otherwise.
Speaker 3: And so they're also immune from lawsuits.
Speaker 2: We don't see legislators getting sued for bad bills, even
Speaker 2: though maybe we should.
Speaker 1: Take that way, Amen, I would be in favor of that.
Speaker 1: So how has this affected the actual policing? What are
Speaker 1: the real world impacts of this qualified immunity situation?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there was a couple of real world impacts.
Speaker 2: I think one you can't discount the idea that this
Speaker 2: had a psychological impact on law enforcement. This was legislation
Speaker 2: designed to be very punitive towards law enforcement officers all
Speaker 2: over the state of Colorado.
Speaker 3: So just from a psychological standpoint, when.
Speaker 2: The tough work you're doing isn't being appreciated by those
Speaker 2: passing laws, it makes it tough to do the job,
Speaker 2: makes it tough to wake up every morning, put on
Speaker 2: the uniform and go out and fight crime. And then
Speaker 2: on a separate, more real world basis, you know, it
Speaker 2: really affected recruiting and retention, and so we saw people
Speaker 2: that were close to retirement age they might retire early
Speaker 2: or you know, get out as soon as they possibly can,
Speaker 2: and then the recruiting effort.
Speaker 3: Was really difficult. And so law enforcement has.
Speaker 2: Had a real fight really since that bill was passed
Speaker 2: to recruit and properly fully staff their police departments. So
Speaker 2: down here in Colorado Springs, we've got the second biggest
Speaker 2: city in the state of Colorado, and our police department
Speaker 2: is severely understaffed and it struggles all the time to
Speaker 2: get even close to something that on what we actually
Speaker 2: need down here, and it's the same all over the state.
Speaker 1: I want to share with you an email from a
Speaker 1: former law enforcement officer here in Colorado who has since
Speaker 1: left the state, and he said, I have so much
Speaker 1: to say on this. First, it's not really the pay
Speaker 1: up to twenty five K, because that was always the case.
Speaker 1: When you were found to be acting outside the color
Speaker 1: of authority, you can be held liable and no immunity applies.
Speaker 1: One of the most chilling parts of the reforms was
Speaker 1: the form you have to fill out after every contact.
Speaker 1: It consists of why contact, race, outcome, forced use, and
Speaker 1: who initiated the contact. An extra fifteen minutes if there's
Speaker 1: only one person in the contact, add more time for
Speaker 1: more people. It is one of the huge reasons why
Speaker 1: cops don't do traffic stops. And this may shock you.
Speaker 1: When it came out, it was so gray as to
Speaker 1: was what it was used for and when you needed
Speaker 1: to fill it out. According to the Democrat pass law,
Speaker 1: just another pain in the ass and a tool which
Speaker 1: can selectively be used to show racism depending on how
Speaker 1: you pull the data. So there's I think for people
Speaker 1: who are not in law enforcement and generally speaking, I
Speaker 1: hate it when legislators legislate anything that they don't know
Speaker 1: anything about. And let's be real, they don't know anything
Speaker 1: about most stuff, right, They just don't. They have their
Speaker 1: very individual, siloed views. What I've always found fascinating, Michael,
Speaker 1: is when you see news stories where you have a
Speaker 1: community activist who then goes through the point and shoot
Speaker 1: training that the cops have to go through, the split
Speaker 1: second training, and they come out on the other side
Speaker 1: and go, holy crap, that was a lot different than
Speaker 1: I thought.
Speaker 3: What was going on?
Speaker 1: What can we do in Colorado to either help legislators
Speaker 1: or help regular people understand these life and death decisions
Speaker 1: that are made instantaneously every single day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think if we can ever figure that out,
Speaker 3: we'd be onto something. It's a tough thing.
Speaker 2: Voters, unfortunately, are so distracted by so many different things,
Speaker 2: and I think that's ultimately what it comes down to,
Speaker 2: is that elections do have consequences. When we're allowing people
Speaker 2: to get elected into the state legislature that.
Speaker 3: Have maybe an acts to grind against law enforcement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the thing that we get and we shouldn't be
Speaker 2: surprised when we get the government we deserve.
Speaker 3: When we're so distracted as a community.
Speaker 1: So what do we do with this bill and how
Speaker 1: would that make an impact? I don't see this legislature
Speaker 1: made up controlled by Democrats. This is a zero percent
Speaker 1: chance they're going to roll back this qualified immunity change.
Speaker 1: So what could we do? What could be possible?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you asked Paul this the other day
Speaker 2: on the radio too, about if he could undo one
Speaker 2: legislative change over the last several years with the criminal
Speaker 2: justice reform, what.
Speaker 3: Would that be?
Speaker 2: The problem is, there's been so many that are so
Speaker 2: detrimental to public safety that it's hard to pick just one.
Speaker 2: I think the Senate built two seventeen from twenty twenty
Speaker 2: would be a really good one to just completely undo.
Speaker 2: It's led to less police on the streets and that
Speaker 2: means fewer crimes being solved. And then as you all
Speaker 2: we're talking about on Tuesday, is more repeat offenders. They're
Speaker 2: just down on the street and they have a proclivity
Speaker 2: to commit crime and they're doing that because they can.
Speaker 1: I'm want to ask you another question that isn't directly
Speaker 1: related to the qualified immunity story, but we've just had
Speaker 1: a story where we have a guy who's been arrested
Speaker 1: for attempted murder after allegedly shooting someone on two two five,
Speaker 1: And he is an illegal immigrant from Honduras. He was
Speaker 1: deported three times, and I don't even know how the
Speaker 1: Aurora ped was able to loop in Homeland Security to
Speaker 1: get this guy off the streets finally, But we're in
Speaker 1: a state where Democrats are increasingly protecting people like this.
Speaker 1: This is what's going on. How has the banning of
Speaker 1: any cooperation between your office or any law enforcement agency
Speaker 1: and ICE affected you in the fourth Judicial District?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it's I can actually point to even
Speaker 2: across the whole state of Colorado law enforcement. You know,
Speaker 2: our local law enforcement agencies, whether it's a sheriff's office
Speaker 2: or a police department, they're really nervous about working with
Speaker 2: ICE on anything or any federal agency for that matter,
Speaker 2: that might have some tangential connection to immigration. So if
Speaker 2: we have a drug distribution investigation and it is involving
Speaker 2: cartel activity, that means somehow that the federal government is
Speaker 2: involved in investigating these people because it's a transnational drug
Speaker 2: distribution organization, which means that immigration potentially is at play
Speaker 2: in any sort of convictions.
Speaker 3: That you might get in the case like that, And
Speaker 3: I've had.
Speaker 2: Police officers locally tell me that they're nervous about working
Speaker 2: on those types of cases because we've had our attorney
Speaker 2: general suing law enforcement officers across the state of Colorado.
Speaker 3: We've obviously got the law that says you're not.
Speaker 2: Allowed to do that, although there is a caveat in
Speaker 2: that law that says if you are working on an
Speaker 2: active criminal investigation, you can still cooperate on that criminal investigation.
Speaker 2: But when you've got an attorney general that's actively going
Speaker 2: after people, it makes them nervous about working on these cases.
Speaker 1: In a general sense, my frustration with this entire thing
Speaker 1: is that imagine, just imagine if Colorado said to the
Speaker 1: federal government, we'd love your help in getting these people
Speaker 1: that are violent criminals, like this guy from Honduras out
Speaker 1: of our state. We'd love to cooperate with you to
Speaker 1: get these violent criminals who already have a deportation order,
Speaker 1: maybe been deported three more times. We'd love to work
Speaker 1: with you. At least from that perspective, a collaboration could
Speaker 1: actually get something done. A collaboration could actually get this guy,
Speaker 1: maybe permanently out of the country, although I have no
Speaker 1: reason to think he won't just come back because there's
Speaker 1: no penalty to be paid, right if you just keep
Speaker 1: coming back, Apparently all they do is keep sending you
Speaker 1: out again. I just it's insane. How is there any
Speaker 1: way for your office to and you just kind of
Speaker 1: explained how to navigate this whole thing, But I mean,
Speaker 1: what what I want, and I'm never going to get it,
Speaker 1: is for everyone outside state government to just say we're
Speaker 1: not following this bad law. It's a bad law and
Speaker 1: we're not following it. I realize that won't happen, but
Speaker 1: it seems to me we have ample ammunition rhetorical to
Speaker 1: make the case that we are actually harming Colorado and
Speaker 1: citizens by not doing that. So I mean, can you
Speaker 1: make that argument in any compelling way to anyone who
Speaker 1: will listen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a hard thing to actually put
Speaker 2: into practice, because you know, as an executive branch member
Speaker 2: that's where I am as a prosecutor.
Speaker 3: The police are executive branch. We take a note to support.
Speaker 2: The constitution of the State of Colorado, the laws of
Speaker 2: the State of Colorado. It's hard to start picking and
Speaker 2: choosing and you know, you could get a scenario potentially
Speaker 2: where maybe a far left leaning person gets elected to
Speaker 2: a position like this and they start ignoring other laws
Speaker 2: that we think are important on violent crime, for instance. Right,
Speaker 2: I think that's a slippery slope to go down. The
Speaker 2: I think for me, the better avenue is bring attention
Speaker 2: to it, and let's try to get some advances in
Speaker 2: the legislature so we can get more seats and maybe
Speaker 2: stop some of this, and then as we build momentum,
Speaker 2: maybe start undoing.
Speaker 3: Some of the nonsense.
Speaker 2: D A.
Speaker 1: Michael Allen from the fourth Judicial District, Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for your time today, Mike. I really appreciate it. Thank you,
Speaker 1: Mandy all Right, that is good information.