Denver oversight officials say new Safety discipline approach limits transparency

Denver’s independent monitor and the Citizens Oversight Board told a City Council committee on June 24 that the Department of Safety’s education-based discipline approach and a new June directive are reducing transparency and delaying accountability, according to the committee briefing.

Monitor Liz Perez Castle said Directive 2026-001 moves some misconduct allegations into a broader “duty to obey” category, allows supervisors to handle them and stops notice to her office, she told council members. Because the directive text was not obtained, the article relies on her description of its effects. Perez Castle said that means the Office of the Independent Monitor cannot review some incidents, weigh in on investigations or discipline, or report those cases publicly.

She said the broader education-based discipline, or EBD, model also shifts some conduct away from predictable discipline and toward training or coaching, which she said “fundamentally changes the current discipline system” and “reverse[s] the matrix” that historically tied misconduct to a likely disciplinary range, according to the meeting.

The warnings came during the committee’s annual updates from the Office of the Independent Monitor and the Citizens Oversight Board, docketed as items 26-0930 and 26-0931 and recorded as heard in committee, according to the meeting minutes.

Perez Castle and board members also said the monitor’s office is under budget and staffing strain. Perez Castle said the OIM budget has been cut for the past three years and is expected to shrink again in 2027, while the office has 15 positions and three outreach vacancies and asked for six more positions, according to the briefing. The board said staffing has not grown even as the office handles 52% more recorded complaints, 22% more investigations and 39% more disciplinary cases. Board members also said they still had not received information needed to assess the EBD pilot, including community-engagement results and training materials.

Perez Castle’s annual report pointed to rising complaint and custody-related numbers in 2025. She said the OIM handled 415 Denver Police Department complaint investigations and 623 Denver Sheriff Department complaint investigations, while also monitoring 11 DPD officer-involved shootings, three deaths during interactions with DPD officers and eight deaths in DSD custody or during interactions with deputies, according to her presentation.

She said DPD community complaints involving force rose from 34 in 2024 to 67 in 2025, and DPD logged 73 use-of-force policy directives in 2025, up 28% from the year before. On the sheriff side, she said community and in-custody complaints rose 25% year over year, internal complaints rose 22%, failures to make required rounds rose to 3% from 1%, data and technology governance violations rose to 8%, and EEOC complaints rose to 3%, according to the meeting.

Perez Castle said cases that bypassed formal disciplinary review moved much faster than those that went through the full process. She said 75% of DPD cases that did not go through disciplinary review were completed in about 52 days, compared with about 282 days for the quarter of cases that did. For DSD, she said 52% of cases that skipped disciplinary review were completed in about 41 days, while reviewed cases averaged about 302 days, according to the committee video.

Oversight officials said speed should not come at the cost of review. Perez Castle said her office was not consulted before Directive 2026-001 was issued, and board members said sidelining oversight could increase city liability and erode public trust, they told the committee.

Tim Hoffman, speaking for Mayor Mike Johnston’s office, told council members the administration is in ongoing discussions with the monitor and is committed to ensuring the OIM is brought into the loop in a timely fashion, according to the meeting.

Committee Chair Darrell Watson said the Department of Safety is scheduled to brief council on the directive on Aug. 12 and that he could push for an earlier appearance if the department does not answer members’ questions before then, the committee discussion shows.