The Colorado law enforcement group that conducts criminal investigations and forensic and laboratory services on behalf of local units has a new chief.  

Chris Schaefer, deputy director of the investigations section for the Colorado Bureau of Investigations, will become the group’s new director effective Feb. 3, 2023.

He is the first internal candidate in several decades to succeed an outgoing director, according to a news release from the Colorado Department of Public Safety.

Schaefer will replace John Camper, who has been CBI director for the past five years and who will retire in February.

Schaefer was selected “after a robust and competitive search followed by panel interviews with CDPS leadership, CBI staff, and statewide and federal partners, including law enforcement and district attorneys,” Colorado Department of Public Safety Executive Director Stan Hilkey said in a news release.

Schaefer began his law enforcement career with the Department of Public Safety as a state trooper in 1995 and joined CBI in 2004. Schaefer also served as an Agent in Charge in the CBI’s Support Services section, coordinating the Biometrics Identification and Records Unit. He is president of the International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association. 

Hilkey said the opening produced “an outstanding field of candidates … but Chris relayed an exceptional vision for the Bureau and commitment to collaboration with our partners and the members of the CBI.”

Hilkey called Chris an outstanding leader and the “right person to guide the CBI through its current expansion of more than 100 positions over the next three years.”

“His strength in building relationships, his extensive investigative experience, and his problem solving background will serve the Bureau and state extremely well in the coming months and years,” the department chief said. 

The expansion of CBI is a multi-year project, prompted in part by a need for more agents and resources to deal with the state’s growing fentanyl crisis and demands for investigators that outpace the division’s current supply.

Schaefer told Colorado Politics earlier this year the investigations unit had just 18 staff for the entire state, compared to 45 for the city of Lakewood alone. The bureau is struggling to keep up with requests, officials said.

The 18 CBI investigators also face geographic challenges, as it might take five hours to drive to pursue a case, and some of those investigations can take 18 months to complete. An agent assigned to a homicide, such as the in the Suzanne Morphew homicide case in Salida, is working solely on that case full-time. It’s impossible to guess how long an agent will be tied to a case, and that’s part of the challenge of having a small staff, Schaefer said. 

That leads to the bureau turning down cases, although CBI always accepts homicides, Schaefer said.

“It is an absolute privilege to have been selected to serve as the director of an organization that has been my home for my entire career. I look forward to continuing to represent the CBI in this new capacity, and to work with our law enforcement partners across the state to assist with their investigative needs,” Schaefer said in Tuesday’s announcement.

Schaefer will be the tenth CBI director since the creation of the bureau in 1967.