More than 200 law enforce­ment offi­cers across Col­orado resigned or retired in the weeks after Gov. Jared Polis enact­ed sweep­ing police reforms by sign­ing Sen­ate Bill 217 into law on June 19, accord­ing to state data.

Though it’s unclear how many of the sep­a­ra­tions are the direct result of the new law — with its strik­ing impli­ca­tions that include offi­cers’ per­son­al finan­cial lia­bil­i­ty for their actions — inter­views with chiefs of police and union offi­cials sug­gest a num­ber of them are, and the state’s largest police orga­ni­za­tion has launched a sur­vey to find out.

Between June 13, the day the leg­is­la­ture passed the bill, and Aug. 7, agen­cies statewide report­ed 241 offi­cers have left their depart­ment, includ­ing those who were fired, accord­ing to the Col­orado Police Offi­cer Stan­dards and Train­ing board that cer­ti­fies them. The num­ber includes sworn police offi­cers and sheriff’s deputies, as well as some offi­cers who are not POST-certified.

Law enforce­ment agen­cies are required to noti­fy POST with­in 15 days of an officer’s sep­a­ra­tion, but not the rea­son behind it or the posi­tion they held, so it’s pos­si­ble some offi­cers mere­ly trans­ferred to anoth­er depart­ment with­in the state, offi­cials say.

“No doubt there’s an impact (from SB 217), but we can’t put num­bers on it yet,” said Mike Vio­lette, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Col­orado State Fra­ter­nal Order of Police and a Den­ver sheriff’s deputy. “We’re hear­ing the offi­cers are con­cerned about being in the pro­fes­sion and what’s hap­pen­ing. That’s why we run­ning a statewide sur­vey: to find out.”

Indi­vid­u­al­ly, police depart­ments say since the bill became law, they’ve had more than the nor­mal num­ber of res­ig­na­tions and retire­ments, but none is able to con­clude it’s the direct result of SB 217. The num­ber of sep­a­ra­tions since the bill became law is slight­ly high­er than the aver­age num­ber POST usu­al­ly sees over the same time peri­od, offi­cials said. The state attor­ney general’s office declined to pro­vide spe­cif­ic numbers.

Some num­bers report­ed by POST dif­fered from what agen­cies told The Den­ver Post when con­tact­ed because the state’s tal­ly includes fir­ings. For instance, the Auro­ra Police Depart­ment said it had six res­ig­na­tions and nine retire­ments since the mid­dle of June, but POST report­ed the agency had 20 depar­tures, which includ­ed five offi­cer firings.

The Jef­fer­son Coun­ty Sheriff’s Depart­ment report­ed 11 res­ig­na­tions and six retire­ments in that time frame, sec­ond-high­est total among all agen­cies statewide, and POST report­ed a total of 19 sep­a­ra­tions, includ­ing two jail­ers. A JCSD spokesman said each offi­cer who left was asked to vol­un­teer whether SB 217 was a fac­tor in their deci­sion, and five said it was.

“I’ve talked to many offi­cers who are con­cerned about this bill and what it looks like the impact will be to them,” said Auro­ra police Offi­cer Judy Lutkin, a 30-year vet­er­an who is pres­i­dent of the Auro­ra Police Asso­ci­a­tion. “We’re scram­bling to fig­ure out the insur­ance bit, to pre­vent offi­cers from los­ing their hous­es when they’re act­ing in good faith. I’m look­ing to retire and I don’t want to have to leave, but I don’t want myself and my fam­i­ly at risk.”

“Some personal skin in the game”

At issue is a pro­vi­sion with­in SB 217 that allows for offi­cers to be sued per­son­al­ly and held liable for 5% of any judg­ment or set­tle­ment against them or $25,000, whichev­er is less. Wiped away was a long-stand­ing pro­vi­sion of qual­i­fied immu­ni­ty, which means an offi­cer act­ing under the author­i­ty of a gov­ern­ment couldn’t be sued personally.

Oth­er pro­vi­sions with­in the new law also have offi­cers talk­ing — required body cam­eras, a require­ment to inter­vene on anoth­er offi­cer using exces­sive force or face mis­de­meanor charges, the bar­ring of choke­holds — but none is as dis­con­cert­ing as the finan­cial liability.

“When SB 217 was passed, it put some (offi­cers) over the edge to take (ear­ly retire­ment),” said Lt. Bob Shaf­fer of the Love­land Police Depart­ment, where five offi­cers have retired. “There is a sig­nif­i­cant fear of being vul­ner­a­ble and unsup­port­ed that is caus­ing a lot of offi­cers to, at a min­i­mum, con­sid­er leav­ing employ­ment and mov­ing out of the state entirely.”

Shaf­fer said as many as 10 offi­cers in the Love­land depart­ment had said they intend­ed to retire as a result of the new law.

“A lot of offi­cers talk a big game, but when it real­ly comes down to it, they are loy­al, ded­i­cat­ed, and know that, in the end, they’re doing what they need to be doing,” he said.

Called the Enhance Law Enforce­ment Integri­ty Act, the bill came quick­ly after bands of pro­test­ers marched and col­lect­ed in front of the state Capi­tol, demand­ing jus­tice for George Floyd, a Black man killed by Min­neapo­lis police. Those demon­stra­tions flared into con­fronta­tions with police that includ­ed tear gas, pep­per balls and foam bul­lets. They also expand­ed to demand sim­i­lar jus­tice for Eli­jah McClain, a Black man who died last year after Auro­ra police put him in a choke­hold and para­medics inject­ed him with a heavy sedative.

The law, writ­ten by Rep. Leslie Herod, a Den­ver Demo­c­rat who chairs the state’s Black Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leg­isla­tive Cau­cus, was the first nation­al­ly to give vic­tims of police vio­lence the right to sue an offi­cer directly.

“If they’re leav­ing because of this account­abil­i­ty, then maybe it’s time to think of a new pro­fes­sion,” Herod told The Den­ver Post. “It should be that an offi­cer has some per­son­al skin in the game.”

The finan­cial lia­bil­i­ty was ini­tial­ly set to be $100,000, but it was toned down as the bill moved through the leg­is­la­ture in about two weeks.

“It’s the abil­i­ty to sec­ond-guess an offi­cer and basi­cal­ly make them liable, and if you get hit with that, you’re fired,” said Den­ver Detec­tive Nick Rogers, pres­i­dent of the Den­ver Police Pro­tec­tive Asso­ci­a­tion and a 35-year vet­er­an of the depart­ment, most of them as a  nar­cotics detec­tive. “If you were act­ing in good faith the day before 217 start­ed, and you do the same after, it’s not mag­i­cal­ly a mis­take now. What does change is the city is basi­cal­ly hav­ing to decide when and if an offi­cer is not act­ing in good faith.”

That risk, along with a dra­mat­ic shift in the pub­lic protests against police, has giv­en Rogers pause about con­tin­u­ing his career for as long as he had planned.

“I have decid­ed to leave myself, per­haps in a year or two rather than the four or so I had planned on,” he said. “Being a cop isn’t the same as it was yes­ter­day. My pro­fes­sion changed on me; I didn’t change on my pro­fes­sion. To me, I didn’t quit on soci­ety; it quit on me.”

Herod said the intent of SB 217 is to make polic­ing a respectable pro­fes­sion so that offi­cers can rely on the public’s con­fi­dence and respect.

“The sup­port isn’t there and law enforce­ment isn’t respect­ed as it once was, and we need to change that,” she said. “We want the com­mu­ni­ty to have faith in them again.”

“Who wants to be a cop any longer?”

The con­cern is also about hir­ing new offi­cers to fill in the spots of those who are leav­ing, accord­ing to Steam­boat Springs Police Chief Cory Chris­tensen, who is pres­i­dent of the Col­orado Asso­ci­a­tion of Chiefs of Police.

“I do hear from the oth­er chiefs that they have offi­cers leav­ing the pro­fes­sion alto­geth­er or are seek­ing law enforce­ment oppor­tu­ni­ties out­side the state because of 217,” Chris­tensen said.

The real impact, he said, won’t come for months since it takes time to hire new offi­cers and for those leav­ing to find new jobs.

“Job post­ings are for 30 or 45 days, we run a vari­ety of tests and back­ground checks, so we’re not real­ly going to see the real­i­ty until about Jan­u­ary,” he said. “Folks are look­ing and we won’t see the out­come of those search­es, them leav­ing a depart­ment, until they find the jobs.”

Recruit­ment has been tough, he said, and the cur­rent cli­mate sur­round­ing police work isn’t mak­ing it easier.

“Some­one not in the pro­fes­sion isn’t real­ly pay­ing atten­tion to 217 yet, but they are see­ing how police are treat­ed and how polic­ing is viewed in gen­er­al,” Chris­tiansen said. “And recov­er­ing from COVID-19 has hurt us all. It’s not been easy.”

Vio­lette agreed: “To see an exo­dus of any sort because of pol­i­tics is not good, but add in the big­ger over­rid­ing prob­lems of recruit­ment. Who wants to be a cop any longer?”

Rogers said the leg­is­la­tion pun­ish­es good offi­cers as well as those who deserve it.

“We went from 100% love in the com­mu­ni­ty dur­ing this pan­dem­ic, then overnight all of us became the dev­il and we didn’t deserve it,” he said. “Get the dirty ones out, get rid of them, but 99.9% of us are good. Soci­ety screwed all the good cops and it’s not right.”

Some cities, such as Green­wood Vil­lage, have stepped in to let offi­cers know the city will cov­er any per­son­al lia­bil­i­ty expo­sure cre­at­ed by SB 217.

Herod said it’s her intent — and she says she’s got the sup­port — to close that loophole.

“It’s the intent to ensure the law is clear, and if we need to put in addi­tion­al enforce­ment for skin in the game, it will be there,” Herod said.