The Colorado Springs Police Department announced Monday its selection of an independent consultant to audit its use of force and deescalation tactics, a next step toward implementing a series of reforms backed by a city law enforcement advisory commission.

The Police Executive Research Forum, a policing policy and research organization based in Washington, D.C., will begin the audit of CSPD’s use of force and de-escalation tactics and “procedural justice,” or communication and interaction with the public during calls for service, said CSPD Commander John Koch.

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The audit comes in response to an April 2022 study by Pennsylvania-based Transparency Matters that examined racial disparities in police tactics and that resulted in eight broad recommendations, such as enhancing a culture within the department that rewards deescalation, improving the timely release of information, reducing racial and ethnic disparities in use of force and improving oversight of instances when people are held at gunpoint.

Conducting the independent audit of use-of-force training is a “small component” of the study’s recommendations, Koch said.

“There are a lot of things we think we are doing well, but we also know that you’re never great at assessing yourself,” Koch said. “(An independent audit will) see if there are other things that we can do that would be better for our community, police officers and department. When we hear what those things are, we’ll go to the public with them.”

Officials said PERF was selected by a group of community members, CSPD staff and officers and the city’s Law Enforcement Transparency and Advisory Commission (LETAC), which in September formally backed all changes surrounding use of force called for in the Transparency Matters report.

Koch said PERF was chosen though a “competitive process” because of the vendor’s history of developing a number of national best practices in policing, including the Integrating Communications, Assessment and Tactics (ICAT) law enforcement decision-making model.

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According to CSPD finance administrator Nancy McCauley, the contract work is “not-to-exceed” $244,780 and will be paid for with funding from the Department of Justice Equitable Sharing Program.

According to Koch, PERF will largely audit the Police Department from Washington, analyzing the quality and effectiveness of training and instructional materials given to officers, as well as during “a few” trips to Colorado Springs to conduct focus group meetings with CSPD staff and community members.

The audit is strictly a review of existing practices, not an implementation of new training programs. But the review, which is expected to take up to nine months, could yield new recommendations based on findings, Koch said.

Koch addressed concern over the perceived delays in the audit’s timing, which comes roughly 16 months after the Transparency Matters report was released.

“Over that year and a half, we held several meetings with police officers, police supervisors, community groups and community members,” including LETAC, Koch said.

“The process for obtaining a vendor through city procurement and finance is a lengthy one, (including) reviewing proposals and ensuring that all the people that are affected by the decision we’re making have a voice in that process.”

The 2022 Transparency Matters report examined how 5,933 individuals had force used against them over four years, according to previous reporting by The Gazette. The police force left 73% of people involved in those instances injured, although only 1.5% were seriously injured, the report said.

The study, which also surveyed 300 CSPD members and held focus groups for officers, found that “multiple officers were very critical about the amount and quality of the training provided regarding the use of force.” The feeling that officers were undertrained to use hands-on force also was “pervasive,” the report said.

A survey confirmed these feelings were widespread, with more than 80% of officers saying they needed more training on nonlethal weapons, defensive tactics, crisis intervention and de-escalation. More than 90% said they wanted training using shoot-don’t-shoot scenarios.

Koch said PERF will host a public presentation of the findings at the end of the nine-month process, and the findings will also be published on CSPD’s website.

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