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Three finalists for the next Denver Independent Monitor were announced this week, and community members will have a significant say in who gets the job.
“There is a reckoning that is taking place with regard to public safety and race and equity in our community and in many communities around the country. Getting to be a part of that and lead that work can be very exciting for the right candidate,” says Julia Richman, chair of the Citizen Oversight Board, which just announced the three finalists: Joseph Lipari of Boulder, Robert “Bob” Booth II of Denver and Dana Walton-Macaulay of Portland, Oregon.
The Citizen Oversight Board will co-host virtual community meetings with the finalists on February 16 and 17.
“If the community is like, ‘Well, none of these folks are going to be it,’ and everybody hates everybody, we can take that consideration as well,” Richman adds. “If it’s not the right fit for any of these folks, then we’ll try again.”
Nick Mitchell, who’d served as Independent Monitor for over eight years, announced that he was stepping down in late 2020. His last big job as the chief law enforcement watchdog was compiling a report that took the Denver Police Department to task for its chaotic and, at times, overly harsh response to the George Floyd protests in late May and June 2020. Mitchell accepted a job overseeing reform in the Los Angeles County jail system, but he remains in Denver.
“Denver is well-recognized as one of the most effective and mature oversight structures and environments in the country. It’s exciting to be a part of something that has a lot going for it,” says Richman.
Since Mitchell left the job he had held since 2012, Gregg Crittenden, a senior deputy monitor, has been serving as the interim head of the Office of the Independent Monitor, which watches over not only police conduct, but also the work of the Denver Sheriff Department, which runs the city’s correctional system. The post was created by then-Mayor John Hickenlooper in 2004.
This will be the first time that the Citizen Oversight Board, rather than the Denver mayor, will choose the final candidate, with Denver City Council then voting to approve the nomination. That’s thanks to a proposed charter change measure put on the ballot by council, which voters approved in November 2021. The Citizen Oversight Board, comprised of 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.
The next Independent Monitor will have big shoes to fill, as Mitchell garnered respect from councilmembers as law enforcement reform advocates, and generally had a positive working relationship with the administration of Mayor Michael Hancock.
Still, the Independent Monitor position is not as strong as some would like; the position can only investigate, issue reports and recommend actions, but does not have actual disciplinary power. That resides with Denver’s top-ranking Public Safety officials.
The City of Denver received approximately sixty applications for the job, and the selection committee eventually interviewed five people before arriving at the three finalists, according to Richman. She served on the committee, along with Denver City Council rep Jamie Torres; Cindy Bishop from the Denver Office of Human Resources; Claudia Jordan, who previously served as a Denver County Court judge; and Brian Corr, the executive secretary for the Police Review and Advisory Board for the City of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Two of the three finalists are from the area. Lipari, who has served as the City of Boulder’s police monitor since July 2020. He’s also done police-monitoring work in Syracuse, New York City and Chicago. Although he is not a lawyer, Lipari has an academic background in race and policing.
Walton-Macaulay works as the deputy director in the Independent Police Review in Portland, Oregon, where that agency is now in flux. A lawyer, Walton-Macauley has experience adjudicating student conduct in higher education and in family law.
Booth II works in the Colorado Attorney General’s Office as an assistant deputy attorney general and director of the Medicaid Fraud Control Unit; he’s spent much of his legal career as a prosecutor, and was involved in writing the 2021 indictment of the police officers and paramedics connected to the death of Elijah McClain in Aurora in 2019.
“It’s a challenging time to recruit,” Richman notes. “It’s a very small pool. It’s not like we’re hiring for a lawyer. It’s a specific craft with a lot of minutiae in the skills there. Finding the right candidate is a challenge. Who is right for the city?
“We’re interested in what the community has to say.”
