In the wake of cases of apparent police brutality dominating headlines from Ferguson to North Carolina, Baltimore and all the way to Denver, lawmakers in Colorado this week took further action on a package of 10 bills aimed at restoring the public’s trust in the work of law enforcement.

A portion of the two handfuls of legislative proposals got unanimous support across chambers and aisles.

Senate Bill 15-219 requires a multi-agency investigation of any officer-involved shooting. Rep. Joe Salazar, who sponsors the bill together with former Weld County Sheriff and now-Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, and Sen. Ellen Roberts, R-Durango, told the House Judiciary committee Tuesday that, “Not only does it deal with transparency but also with public confidence that the investigation is being conducted objectively.” The bill, which cleared the committee on a 13-0 vote after unanimous support in the Senate, aims to bar departments from being the sole investigator of their own officer’s actions in cases of shootings.

The second contention free bill, SB15-217, amends the collection of data on officer-involved shootings. If sent to the governor’s desk (as is expected), the legislation would require an agency to report to the Division of Criminal Justice the demographic information about the officer and the victim as well as the circumstances that led to the use of force. The bill, sponsored by Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver, and Sens. Cooke and Roberts, passed both the Senate and the House Local Government committee with unanimous support.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle also like another Williams/Cooke/Roberts bill, which requires a law enforcement agency to provide an officer’s record of misrepresentation — dating back to 2010 — if said officer applies for a job at another agency in the state. SB15-218 is on the House floor with unanimous approvals from the Senate and the House Judiciary committee, and it aims to prevent “bad apples” from agency-hopping.

Delta County Sheriff Fred McKee wrote in a letter to the committee that in order to put only the best-qualified officers on the streets, “we need to be confident that our background checks are accurate and complete. Past employers need to be able to provide all pertinent information when it comes to the truthfulness of their past employees.”

But it wasn’t all kumbaya.

The legislators also reduced the overall number of bills from the original 10 to seven. Just Wednesday, the Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs committee killed two proposals.

HB15-1291, sponsored by Rep. Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, and Sen. Lucia Guzman, D-Denver, would have banned police officers from using chokeholds except in cases where such action saved their life. The bill cleared the House despite some resistance, 44-20. But it was doomed when the Senate committee picked it up and voted the proposal down, 3-2.

The issue of police officers using chokeholds in an arrest moved into the spotlight of public scrutiny after the death of Eric Garner, an African-American man who died at the hands of Long Island police officers who used a chokehold to force him to the ground.

Melton took to his Facebook page to express his disappointment and stirring anger after Wednesday’s vote. “They blatantly ignored our community,” the lawmaker wrote.

During the same hearing, HB15-1286 also hit a roadblock. The committee voted down 3-2 the bill sponsored by Reps. Joe Salazar, D-Thornton, and Daniel Kagan, D-Cherry Hills Village, as well as Sens. Jessie Ulibarri, D-Denver, and Senate Minority Leader Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora. The lawmakers had proposed to allow a judge to overrule a prosecutor’s decision not to file charges in a case of apparent police misconduct resulting in serious bodily harm or death, granting the judge the power to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the case.

And HB15-1289, sponsored by Reps. Salazar and Justin Everett, R-Littleton, would have required a court to dismiss all charges against a defendant based on an unlawful police order. But the measure didn’t even make it out of the House Judiciary committee, where it died earlier this month, on April 2, on a 3-10 vote.

Despite these blows dealt to her key legislative endeavor this session, Rep. Williams, who sponsors five of the package’s bills, told The Statesman she was confident that a majority of the proposals would make it onto the governor’s desk.

“This has been a peaceful process,” the chairwoman of the House Democratic caucus said, albeit before she got the news of the Senate committee’s slayings. “We are getting fair hearings, and I hope we can make a difference in the state of Colorado.”

Another contentious piece of legislation also faces an uphill battle in the Senate. HB15-1290 aims to reinforce the citizen’s right to record law enforcement officers, as long as such action doesn’t interfere. The bill, sponsored by Reps. Salazar and Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, as well as Sen. Guzman, would fine any officer who destroys footage without cause up to $15,000. This provision infuriates the Colorado Chiefs of Police, who vehemently oppose the bill. Transparency advocates, on the other hand, lobby in favor of the legislation, which cleared the House Wednesday on a 47-16 vote.

The bill was introduced following several incidents across the state where police officers seized footage after citizens filmed arrests or — in one heavily publicized case — the beating of a men and tripping of his pregnant girlfriend by two undercover Denver narcotics officers.

Two more House bills are scheduled to be heard in the Senate Judiciary committee next week. Rep. Williams and Sen. Cooke’s HB15-1287 would add four civilians to the state board that manages officer training and certification. It would also require the board to offer anti-bias, community policing and de-escalation courses. The bill passed the House on April 17, 55-9.

The other one, HB15-1288, would render evidence gathered from profiling-motivated police stops inadmissible in court. The measure, sponsored by Rep. Williams and Sen. Carroll, also broadens the definition of profiling to include color, national origin, nationality, language, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age and disability. The bill narrowly passed the House, 36-28, on April 17.

Reps. Kagan and Williams as well as Sens. Cooke and Ulibarri also introduced legislation that would establish a body-camera grant program. HB15-1285 passed the House 57-7 on April 17, but it still awaits scheduling in the Senate calendar. According to the bill’s fiscal note, the program would cost the state at least $180,000 in the next two fiscal years.

With this set of bills, lawmakers such as Williams feel comfortable that they will help turn the tide in the current overarching anti-police narrative.

But Jeanette Baust, an independent public sociologist, said such an alleged game-changer depends largely on perspective.

“If you go to the communities of color, especially people who have lost family or loved ones, they are always going to say this doesn’t go far enough,” she said. “If you go to people like legislators, any change in government or police is very difficult. So to them, a lot of these bills are recommending major change. There is the spectrum.”

— lars@coloradostatesman.com & @LarsGesing