The Colorado Supreme Court will review whether appellate judges wrongly decided the Peace Officer Standards and Training Board (POST) is a criminal justice agency in a 2023 ruling that kept the state’s database of law enforcement officers confidential.
The refusal to release this information makes Colorado one of just 15 states that keep this type of police officer data secret, according to a nationwide reporting project, preventing the press and public from adequately monitoring the state’s oversight of wandering or second-chance officers.
A Court of Appeals opinion keeping Colorado’s database of law enforcement officers confidential “creates a gaping hole” in the Colorado Open Records Act and broadens the scope of the criminal justice records law “beyond recognition,” two news organizations contend in a certiorari petition submitted to the Colorado Supreme Court.
Colorado’s Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board is a criminal justice agency, and it did not abuse its discretion by denying two news organizations’ requests for the state’s database of certified and decertified law enforcement officers, the Colorado Court of Appeals decided.
Lawyers argued in the Colorado Court of Appeals over whether Colorado’s Peace Officer Standards and Training board is a criminal justice agency or an agency subject to the Colorado Open Records Act.
Colorado’s database of certified and decertified law enforcement officers will remain confidential after a judge Tuesday determined that the state Attorney General’s office did not abuse its discretion under the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act (CCJRA) when it denied journalists’ requests for the records in 2019 and 2020.
A judge has ruled that Colorado’s Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board is a criminal justice agency, possibly hampering legal efforts by two news organizations to obtain the state’s database of certified law enforcement officers.
A lawsuit filed by The Gazette, reporter Chris Osher and The Invisible Institute, a Chicago-based journalism nonprofit, seeks the public disclosure of Colorado’s database of certified law enforcement officers.
A split screen might be the best way to think about government transparency in Colorado in 2019. On one side is the ground-breaking new state law that opens records on completed police internal affairs investigations. On the other is the trend among law enforcement agencies in our state to encrypt 100 percent of their scanner transmissions.
