Court rulings top CFOIC’s 2021 list of Colorado transparency highlights and lowlights, with the most impactful paving the way for a state law change that lets governments publicly name just one finalist for chief executive positions like university president, city manager and school superintendent.
In a test of Colorado’s new law governing the public release of certain police body-worn and dashboard camera footage, a Weld County District Court judge ordered the immediate disclosure of video from a June incident in which a Greeley officer allegedly used a chokehold during an arrest.
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 coalition of news organizations asked a Weld County District Court judge to modify or rescind his order barring the public release of body-worn and dashboard camera footage from a June incident in which a Greeley police officer allegedly used a chokehold during an arrest.
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.
A Trinidad resident who runs a Facebook-based community news site is suing the Las Animas County coroner for wrongly denying his request for the autopsy report on a man whose decomposed body was found in an apartment in 2018.
Two words come to mind when looking back at 2018’s government transparency highlights and lowlights in Colorado. Judicial secrecy.
Will 2016 be remembered as the year we realized just how much our democracy depends on an informed citizenry? The fake news epidemic was one of many issues the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition highlighted in 2016 or wrote about on its blog.
