While continuing to withhold from the public fuller employment histories of Colorado’s police officers, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office unveiled on Monday a searchable database that allows the public to track instances where the state revoked the certification police officers must hold to work for police agencies. 

The public can search the database by typing in an officer’s name to determine whether officers remain in good standing or have had their certification for police work stripped by the Peace Officers Standards and Training board. The data also will disclose the underlying basis for revocations, which generally require a higher threshold to enact in Colorado than most other states.

The Colorado Attorney General’s Office continues to bar the public from accessing the entirety of its database tracking the employment histories of current and former police officers. The Gazette and the Invisible Institute, a non-profit journalistic production company based in Chicago focused on public accountability, are suing the Colorado Attorney General’s Office for refusing to make the broader employment history data public. 

The two news publications have appealed a ruling from Denver District Court Judge J. Eric Elliff upholding the rejection by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser of the news outlets requests for the full employment data. 

The search function the Colorado Attorney General’s Office unveiled on Monday stems from legislation signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in 2020 and 2021. 

The new searchable database, as of Monday only allowed the public to access information related to instances when the POST board revoked an officer‘s certification. Going forward the new search system will allow the public to track additional information. 

That additional information will include instances of officers involved in the following issues, as documented by POST after the start of 2022:

• Untruthfulness.
• Three or more failures to follow POST board training requirements within 10 consecutive years. 
• Termination from a law enforcement agency for cause, unless the termination is overturned by an appellate process. 
• Resignation or retirement while under investigation by the employing law enforcement agency, a district or the attorney general.
• Resignation or retirement following an incident that leads to the opening of an investigation within six months following the peace officers’ resignation or retirement.
• Being the subject of a criminal investigation for a crime that could result in revocation or suspension of certification or the filing of criminal charges for such a crime.
• And credibility disclosure information reported by prosecutors that could impact an officer’s credibility as a witness in court. 

Lawrence Pacheco, the spokesman for Weiser, said the broader information currently isn’t available because the legislature did not make such information public until the start of this year. 

“The law requires POST to create and maintain the database starting Jan. 1, 2022,” he said in an email. “Decertifications have always been public record so this information is included in the database. Going forward, any information required by law that is reported to POST will be included in the database.”