Denver has begun the process of responding to 112 recommendations for reforming policing and public safety by unveiling an online portal to track city agencies’ responses to each recommendation. 

The responses released Friday cover 25 of the 112 recommendations. Denver’s task force for Reimagining Policing and Public Safety, formed in the wake of protests over policing in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, categorized its recommendations under broader strategies.

Each recommendation mentions the lead agency most appropriate to implement it, such as the Department of Public Safety, the judicial system, human services, City Council and community organizations. The city plans to respond to the recommendations in batches through mid-2022, according to a news release. 

The task force’s sweeping recommendations, released in May, include directing more resources to programs that can help reduce people’s involvement with the criminal justice system, decriminalizing offenses that don’t pose a public safety threat, rethinking the types of situations that require a police response, changing policing practices that disproportionately harm marginalized groups and increasing the power of the Office of the Independent Monitor, the city’s law enforcement watchdog. 

The 25 recommendations in the first batch of responses mark 11 as previously implemented, three as implemented and five previously implemented in part. The city said three recommendations will be implemented and marked one as in progress.  

“The (Department of Public Safety) is committed to an ongoing dialogue about the rationale for each recommendation’s response status. While some recommendations have to be declined due to legal limitations, the Department is open to discussing how the intended goal of the recommendation can be achieved in other ways,” the agency said in the release.  

Among the first set of responses, only two recommendations have been outright declined: Requiring all law enforcement officers to carry personal liability insurance as a condition of employment, and requiring police and sheriff’s office employees to pay for abuse and misconduct claims or settlements beyond the statewide cap of $25,000 with personal insurance rather than from the city’s general fund. The city’s response says state law prohibits it from requiring officers to carry personal liability insurance.  

The city says it has committed to:  

Robert Davis, who heads the task force, said the group plans to go through each response by the city to come up with questions for the agencies about their responses.  

“We thought it was only fair to give them space to actually put out” their responses, he said. “We are now in the process of developing a strategy on how we’ll actually approach it now that the portal has been put out.” 

Denver’s City Council has formed a working group dedicated to going through recommendations that could be within its purview to implement. In recent weeks, the group has heard from leaders including Police Chief Paul Pazen and District Attorney Beth McCann about their perspectives on addressing the rise in violent crime in Denver.