Denver is set to choose between a defense attorney, and a former prosecutor and police officer, for the city’s next top law enforcement watchdog.

In a public forum with community stakeholder groups Tuesday night, the candidates said they want to see Denver’s Independent Monitor’s Office communicate better with the public about its work and have better access to digital evidence and data about police encounters.

Two finalists selected for Denver’s Office of the Independent Monitor leader

A search committee named Mary Opler and Lisabeth Castle finalists to replace former monitor Nick Mitchell as the head of the office – the city’s oversight body for safety agencies. The office monitors investigations of Denver’s safety officers, and makes recommendations about discipline and policy to the city’s manager of safety. The office also monitors investigations of citizen complaints about safety officer misconduct.

Opler currently does oversight in Sacramento’s Office of Public Safety Accountability, and spent time as a prosecutor in King County, Washington.

Castle spent 12 years as a public defender in Colorado and opened a private defense practice in 2000, though she continues to take state and federal appointments. In Tuesday’s forum, she emphasized her connections to Denver and knowledge of its law enforcement agencies when she talked about their discipline procedures and the monitor’s powers.

“The Office of the Independent Monitor, for me, is a combination of fighting for civil rights and human rights,” Castle said.

Opler was a police officer for one year in San Francisco, and said she got disillusioned with the job and compelled to do oversight work after she had an openly racist partner who violated people’s constitutional rights. Opler pitched herself as a career public servant with the technical know-how for Denver’s monitor job because of her oversight experience and understanding of varying law enforcement procedures and policies in an array of jurisdictions as a prosecutor.

“I believe this is the civil rights issue of our time, and that is why I’m here,” Opler said.

Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board declines to hire from named independent monitor finalists

Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board will make a final decision about the candidates. The board is broadly tasked with overseeing the effectiveness of the monitor’s office and the city’s Department of Safety.

Castle said although the monitor’s office can’t release detailed information about its discipline recommendations, she would like to see more disclosure about whether it believes discipline decisions are appropriate given each circumstance.

Both candidates also said they want the monitor’s office to have access to Evidence.com, a repository for storing digital evidence – particularly body-worn camera footage – instead of relying on the law enforcement agencies to provide evidence to the monitor.

The candidates raised concerns during Tuesday’s forum about transparency and messaging by law enforcement around the July shooting by police officers in Lower Downtown that injured seven people. Police have said a man threatened officers with a gun when they responded to a fight, but Denver’s district attorney called a grand jury to investigate their actions.

Castle and Opler said the lag between initial information released by police and later release of body-worn camera footage that has called their version of events into question allowed law enforcement to influence the incident’s narrative.

“I even heard about this incident in Sacramento, and the public outrage is palpable,” Opler said. “I’m very concerned by some of the press releases that came out which did not match the video. Just that someone a state away is hearing about that incident reflects badly on the community and the department.”

The candidates were also asked about the role of the monitor’s office in accountability for the Support Team Assisted Response, a civilian-based alternative response program, and the Street Enforcement Team, a program within the Department of Public Safety that gives authority to issue citations for “quality of life” ordinances to a civilian unit. But neither candidate clarified that these programs are not within the Office of the Independent Monitor’s oversight, which has watchdog authority over armed peace officers.

The Office of the Independent Monitor has not had a permanent head since Mitchell stepped down two years ago to oversee a consent decree in Los Angeles County’s jail system. Gregg Crittenden has run the office in the meantime. The next monitor will be the third person to hold the position since the office’s creation in 2004.

The Citizen Oversight Board announced three different finalists earlier this year, but chose not to hire any of them.