Police departments around the country are under the watchful eye of residents asking for change. Change is exactly what Mike Butler, public safety chief, said has been happening in Longmont over the past few years.
City council members at the June 2 meeting inquired about policing practices in Longmont and residents asked questions about how policing matters are handled. Protesters over the weekend cried out to others to “educate yourself” and to vote at the local level.
In the days following the meeting, city officials and Butler reached out to The Leader to explain Longmont’s practices and methods through a series of interviews and discussions.
Butler, who is retiring on July 3, said he has spent the past 26 years working to build a shared culture among Longmont residents and the police department. In Longmont, police officers’ roles are not strictly to enforce the law, but also to “mend the fabric of society,” Butler said.
The city and the police department have spent years building a culture that reaches deep into Longmont communities to build relationships and to encourage police officers to engage in community building roles, he said. “We are trying to maximize another way of being in those (disenfranchised or marginalized) neighborhoods and communities.”
Butler said he has learned through his experience that when officers are only given the opportunity to engage in the community in an enforcement role it harms the relationship between the police and the people they serve.
Officers are assigned to specific areas of the city for long periods of time so they can get to know an area and its residents. Many officers also participate in the Belonging Revolution, an effort to walk neighborhoods, greeting residents and getting to know the “gifts each can contribute to building a better community,” he said.
Part of that community-building approach is restorative justice, which puts the focus on repairing harm caused by a crime. More than 6,000 cases throughout the last 26 years have been addressed through restorative justice programs such as the Angel Initiative; Co-responder/ Crisis Outreach Response and Engagement, or CORE; and Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, or LEAD, according to Butler.
“The programs are results of some of our philosophy and policy. For a while I have felt that our criminal justice system is way too prominent in our society and in our communities in terms of its responsibility for solving social and health issues,” Butler said during the June 2 city council meeting.
Restorative justice programs aim to help offenders find a different path without getting caught in the criminal justice system, at no cost to the individual, Butler said. “We are creating relationships with people and these are healthy relationships with a few people in public safety, to give this person we’re working with another chance to see that they’re valued, that they’re worthy that there are people there supporting them in terms of making a different kind of decision.”
City Manager Harold Dominguez stated it is woven within the fabric of Longmont to have residents involved in government as much as possible. That philosophy extends to the police department via residents participating in reviewing disciplinary issues and policies.
“It was started a long, long time ago and I think serves the community very well to be at the table for these kinds of issues from the beginning,” said Sandi Seader, assistant city manager.
Residents are involved in the Citizens Review Panel, as well as in decisions on police department recruitment, hiring and training; Public Safety Department long-range planning; master police officer and school resource officer selection; and developing policies and procedures. Residents also can serve on Citizen Volunteer Patrols and the Citizen Emergency Response Team, as well as victim advocates.
Longmont Public Safety also invites residents to get an insider’s view of the department via the citizen academy and ride alongs.
The goal, Butler said, is to spark conversations and ideas for change.
“What we have to get good at is having great conversations around these social issues and get out of the one-size-fits-all, quick-fix kind of way of saying ‘here’s how we fix this particular social issue,’” he said.
Dominguez during the June 2 city council meeting said “it's different here. The way we approach things is different. Do we always hit a homerun and knock it out of the park? No, we obviously know from a couple of years ago that we make mistakes but I think the difference is we own those mistakes and we try to make improvements as we are moving forward.”
In an effort to be transparent, the Longmont Police Department for several years has shared professional standards investigation information and a record of use of force, first with the Longmont Observer and now The Longmont Leader. Many other police departments will not share this kind of information with the public.
Professional standards investigations are conducted by and disciplinary actions decided by a group of residents appointed by the city manager, staff from the police department and Butler. During the June 2, city council meeting Butler explained to council how officers are held accountable for their actions by Longmont residents.
These investigations also include public safety staff beyond the police department, such as administration, dispatch, fire and paramedics.
From 2016 through this year, 29 professional standards investigations have been conducted, according to police department records. The investigations covered topics ranging from motor vehicle accidents to code of conduct violations and lost weapons to officer-involved shootings.
Disciplinary or other actions have included letters of reprimand, suspensions and referrals for counseling. A number of investigations exonerated officers, and in some cases the subjects of investigations have resigned.
At the June 2 meeting, council heard from Butler and Dominguez that each officer’s use of force is monitored.
“Departments don’t get this way overnight,” Dominguez said when explaining how the Longmont police force has changed over the years. “This occurs over long periods of time and it's really embedded in the culture of the department and how they approach and deal with people.”
Dominguez said he looks at use of force cases to monitor any shifts in the police department.
Butler in an interview this week said many police departments do not count simple actions, such as pointing a gun at a person, as a use of force and do not document them. Longmont documents actions ranging from holding a person’s arm to a cause to shoot a weapon and everything in between, he said.
Force was used on 43 people in 2019 and 48 so far this year, according to police department data. Data also includes the gender, race and ethnicity of the individuals on which force was used, and the top three types of force used. The top three types used in Longmont include physical grappling, pointing a handgun and hobbling, which involves using restraints to secure the feet and legs of individuals kicking and flailing during an arrest, Butler said.
The charts below show a breakdown of use of force data provided by Longmont Public Safety. The collection time frame is Jan. 1 through May 31 of the corresponding year.
The department also provided data on the partnerships and programs with which the department works closely or with which personnel serve as volunteers or board members.
“We do our best to engage all aspects of the community. We don’t do it well all the time but we try to learn from when we don’t do it well to be in a constant state of improvement,” Dominguez said in an interview last week.
For example, Seader’s role as assistant city manager is to “be a leader of community involvement” and find ways to engage residents in city actions and decisions, according to Dominguez. One such effort is the Community Services Department, which works to develop neighborhood groups and focus on equity, which was identified as needed after the 2013 flood.
“I think it’s important to note that for us, we’ve been really committed to making sure that we work together with the community to solve issues early on,” Seader said.
Butler said, “We aren’t done yet, but we have put a lot of programs in place that are more effective than the enforcement aspect of things.”
The City of Longmont encourages residents to get involved. Contact the city by calling 303-776-6050. For Public Safety call 303-651-8555. Residents also can provide feedback at Engage Longmont, an online engagement platform, or contact city staff by using the citywide directory.
