Den­ver City Coun­cil quashed a pro­pos­al Mon­day night from Coun­cil­woman Can­di Cde­Ba­ca which would have asked vot­ers in Novem­ber to abol­ish the Den­ver Police Depart­ment and cre­ate a “peace force” in its place.

The long-shot mea­sure lacked details and was almost cer­tain to fail.

Cde­Ba­ca said it was still use­ful to force her col­leagues to take a stance on race rela­tions and police reform, which bub­bled to the sur­face once more dur­ing Denver’s George Floyd protests.

While the mea­sure did force the rest of coun­cil to vote — only Cde­Ba­ca vot­ed for the mea­sure and Coun­cil­man Chris Hinds abstained — it also alien­at­ed Cde­Ba­ca from the rest of the group. Some coun­cil mem­bers said they might sup­port shift­ing cash away from law enforce­ment but chid­ed the coun­cil­woman for leav­ing them out of the process meant to work­shop such bal­lot measures.

Rather than sub­mit­ting her pro­pos­al to the council’s com­mit­tees — of which she said she’s mis­trust­ful — Cde­Ba­ca filed them direct­ly onto the group’s Mon­day agen­da late last week. That afford­ed the group lit­tle time to under­stand the mea­sure and even less time to sug­gest changes.

Some on coun­cil said they’d rather revi­tal­ize cur­rent law enforce­ment insti­tu­tions while oth­ers said they were giv­en too lit­tle time to vote on such a sub­stan­tial proposal.

“We cre­ate bet­ter pol­i­cy when 13 coun­cil mem­bers are work­ing togeth­er on it,” Coun­cil­man Paul Kash­mann said.

“You make it feel like it’s us ver­sus you and I’m telling you that it’s not,” Coun­cil­woman Aman­da San­doval lat­er added.

Still, all coun­cil mem­bers who spoke acknowl­edged more work must be done to resolve inher­ent inequities with­in Denver’s law enforce­ment organizations.

After it was pub­lished last week, the pro­pos­al itself drew swift con­dem­na­tion from May­or Michael Han­cock, which he fol­lowed Mon­day morn­ing with a full-on assault on the idea with Pub­lic Safe­ty Direc­tor Mur­phy Robin­son, Police Chief Paul Pazen and new­ly appoint­ed Sher­iff Elias Dig­gins at his side.

Han­cock called the notion “cor­ro­sive” and “ill-informed” while Robin­son said city offi­cials should work to fix prob­lems with­in the police and sher­iff depart­ments rather than yield­ing to a “small but vocal” minority.

Pazen said defund­ing, abol­ish­ing or replac­ing his depart­ment could dis­cour­age peo­ple from liv­ing, work­ing and play­ing in Den­ver, cost­ing jobs and tax rev­enue. Dig­gins, who took over his posi­tion last month, said he’s work­ing to trans­form his depart­ment and fill it with staff who lead with their humanity.

CdeBaca’s pro­pos­al comes with­out trans­paren­cy, account­abil­i­ty and com­mu­ni­ty involve­ment or con­ver­sa­tion, Han­cock said. He called the move “reck­less” and “hyp­o­crit­i­cal.”

Coun­cil­man Kevin Fly­nn, and oth­ers, reit­er­at­ed those points Mon­day evening.

But there has been a com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tion, Cde­Ba­ca said. City offi­cials just haven’t been lis­ten­ing, she said.

“The com­mu­ni­ty has had an open, aggres­sive and clear con­ver­sa­tion with us as they marched in the streets, protest­ed, graf­fi­tied, broke win­dows and as they wrote ‘Abol­ish the police’ all over our streets, walls and build­ings,” Cde­ba­ca said. “That is a com­mu­ni­ty con­ver­sa­tion and it is reflec­tive of how we dimin­ish their voic­es if it is not on their terms.”

While Han­cock and pub­lic safe­ty offi­cials praise Den­ver as a leader in police reform, Cde­Ba­ca not­ed that most of those reforms — many of which Han­cock list­ed dur­ing the con­fer­ence — grew out of com­mu­ni­ty out­rage rather than a proac­tive approach from city leadership.

Changes in train­ing for police and deputies deal­ing with those suf­fer­ing from men­tal ill­ness­es came after jail deputies killed Michael Mar­shall in 2015 as he suf­fered a psy­chot­ic episode.

Pol­i­cy changes on whether offi­cers can shoot into a mov­ing vehi­cle came after police shot and killed 17-year-old Jes­si­ca Her­nan­dez in 2015 and Ryan Ron­quil­lo in 2014.

The Sheriff’s Depart­ment only banned choke­holds after deputies choked and killed Mar­vin Book­er, an inmate, in 2010. That ban was only strength­ened in June dur­ing Denver’s sec­ond week of George Floyd protests. At the same time, offi­cers were required to alert super­vi­sors when­ev­er they point a gun at some­one and SWAT offi­cers were required to use body-worn cam­eras dur­ing tac­ti­cal operations.

Police shot peace­ful pro­test­ers in those weeks with foam pro­jec­tiles and blan­ket­ed peo­ple and neigh­bor­hoods in tear gas so bru­tal­ly that City Coun­cil mem­bers called for an inves­ti­ga­tion on their use of force.

And police han­dled the protests that poor­ly despite all the past reforms, Cde­Ba­ca said. This shows those moves haven’t worked. Instead, the city must shift the very foun­da­tion of Denver’s law enforce­ment agencies.

“Right now, there is not a sin­gle reform that will work because the fox is guard­ing the hen­house,” she said. “There are no real account­abil­i­ty mech­a­nisms for us to make a reform in Denver.”

Still, Han­cock used a spike in vio­lent crimes to under­score Denver’s need of police.

The city is on course to have the high­est num­ber of homi­cides seen in Den­ver in a sin­gle year since 2004.

Nobody denies more work is need­ed, said Coun­cil Pres­i­dent Sta­cie Gilmore. But if a mea­sure is rushed to the bal­lot and fails, a sec­ond attempt will be much more difficult.

“This is way too impor­tant to mess this up by going too fast,” Gilmore said.