Denver Public Safety Director Murphy Robinson announced that law enforcement was officially withdrawing from the “Reimagine Policing and Public Safety Task Force” meetings conducted by Denver’s Citizen Oversight Board.
The Task Force was established to issue policy recommendations following anti-law enforcement riots in Colorado and across the nation last summer.
In a January 13th email announcing law enforcement’s withdrawal from the proceedings, Murphy accused the Task Force of silencing law enforcement in the meetings and said the group lacked full community representation.
“That diverse perspective is what is needed to build consensus for meaningful reform. Without it, the group you have convened is little more than a personal sounding board for political views and rhetoric,” Robinson wrote.
The group’s leader, Denver Ministerial Alliance Pastor Dr. Robert Davis, did not directly refute the notion that law enforcement were instructed not to volunteer their opinions in the meetings.
Robinson, who is African American, also told 9 News that one member of the task force told him that unless he favored abolishing the police or embracing an “abolitionist behavior,” law enforcement’s opinions had no place in the proceedings.
Robinson’s characterization of the meetings as politically extreme might be an understatement.
Socialist Denver City Councilwoman Candi CdeBaca’s Chief of Staff Lisa Calderon opened the December 3rd meeting with a presentation that advocated for defunding the police.
Calderon also attacked Democrats like former President Obama who blamed those extreme proposals for electoral losses in the House.
Anonymous Task Force members also accused Robinson of “traumatizing” them in the meeting because the Public Safety Director simply attempted to explain the daily difficulties and hardships officers face on the job.
Robinson is wisely declining to provide the left-wing crackpots with $50,000 in taxpayer funds to cover “administrative expenses.”
The task force is expected to issue policy recommendations by March.