Denver Board Reopens Search for Next Denver Independent Monitor

After winnowing down the candidates for the job of Denver Independent Monitor to three finalists, the Citizen Oversight Board has decided not to hire any of them, and has reopened the search.

"Though each candidate has admirable experience, qualifications, and a lot to offer their respective communities, none were quite the right fit for the particular challenges and opportunities the next monitor will face in Denver. We did not have the stakeholder consensus on a top candidate that we felt we needed to hire one of the three candidates," the Citizen Oversight Board, which has the job of choosing the next Independent Monitor, says in a statement.

The three finalists were Dana Walton-Macaulay, deputy director of the Independent Police Review in Portland, Oregon; Joseph Lipari, the police monitor in Boulder; and Robert Booth, an assistant deputy attorney general in the Colorado Attorney General's Office.

After interviewing with members of the Citizen Oversight Board, the three finalists not only met with city staffers, but fielded questions from service providers and faith leaders during two virtual community meetings held in February.

"We ask for both community patience and collaboration as we continue the search process. While we had originally hoped to have a monitor selected by spring, we are now aiming for late summer. We intend for this next round to be as collaborative with the community and city stakeholders as the process we just concluded. Updates on the process can be found on our website and in our public board meetings," the COB concludes.

The City of Denver has been without an official independent monitor, who runs the office that serves as a watchdog overseeing the Denver police and sheriff departments, since Nick Mitchell, who'd been in the job since 2012, stepped down in late 2020. Before resigning to take a spot overseeing reform in the Los Angeles County jail system, Mitchell had just finished a report critical of the Denver Police Department's response to the George Floyd protests earlier that year. Earlier in his tenure, Mitchell had issued reports critiquing how the sheriff department handled situations that ultimately led to in-custody deaths of jail detainees.

Greg Crittenden, a senior deputy monitor, has been serving as the interim head of the Office of the Independent Monitor since Mitchell left the gig.

The search for Mitchell's replacement marks the first time that the Citizen Oversight Board, rather than the Denver mayor, has been responsible for choosing the final candidate, who then must be approved by Denver City Council. That's because of a proposed charter change put on the November 2021 ballot by council, which voters approved. The Citizen Oversight Board, which comprises nine citizens — four of whom are appointed by the mayor, four by the council, and one jointly by the mayor and the council — oversees the effectiveness of the Office of the Independent Monitor and advises the city on policies related to law enforcement and public safety.

While the independent monitor will be even more independent going forward thanks to this charter change, the position still will not have disciplinary powers; the monitor can only recommend discipline of individual police officers and deputy sheriffs, with top-ranking police, sheriff and public safety leadership having the final say.

The decision to reopen the search process did come with some warning. Early last month, Julia Richman, chair of the Citizen Oversight Board, offered this: "If the community is like, 'Well, none of these folks are going to be it' and everybody hates everybody, we can take that into consideration as well. ... If it’s not the right fit for any of these folks, then we’ll try again."

And now they are.