Are the taxpayers of Denver well served when the city council ignores an obvious conflict of interest to appoint a BLM activist to the Citizen Oversight Board of the police and sheriff departments, when that activist just filed a lawsuit against the city and county alleging police brutality?

Obviously not.

But that didn’t stop the council from appointing Apryl Alexander, a researcher and forensic psychology professor at the University of Denver to be on the police watchdog board.

Colorado Politics reports she was one of 20 who applied for the seat. Her next stop immediately following her interview was to a protest where police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

Her stop after that appears to be the ACLU, where she signed on with them to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit seeking unspecified monetary damages from the city for “pain and suffering.”

The tear gassing Dr. Alexander experienced on May 28, 2020 cut short her exercise of her First Amendment rights; because of the gas, she was forced to abandon her protest that evening. Dr. Alexander intends to continue protesting peacefully at future protests and seeks to do so without the threat of retaliatory police actions such as tear gassing and use of “less-lethal” weapons.

The city council voted unanimously (Councilman Chris Hinds was absent) to appoint the BLM activist to the oversight board knowing full well said activist will pursue the organization’s goal of defunding police.

At the very least, couldn’t they find a BLM activist to conduct police oversight who wasn’t currently suing the city to collect a huge paycheck from the taxpayers?

As a watchdog, she’s clearly biased and has zero credibility, which will reflect and infect any recommendations put forth by the Citizen Vendetta Oversight Board.