A former member of the City of Boulder’s Police Oversight Panel who was removed from the watchdog group by the Boulder City Council in May 2023 over allegations of bias is suing the city for allegedly violating her constitutional rights to free speech and due process.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. District Court on Jan. 9, is the latest flashpoint in a drawn-out appointment process beginning early last year over who is fit to serve on the Police Oversight Panel. The panel reviews internal investigations into complaints of officer misconduct, among other responsibilities.
Last year, city councilmembers removed Lisa Sweeney-Miran, the director of a homeless shelter and political organizer, from the panel. The decision followed a determination by a city-appointed special counsel that a selection committee set up to nominate new members “failed to adequately evaluate” candidates for their bias.
Residents filed several complaints over Sweeney-Miran’s appointment, with some referring to her as a “cop hater.” The animosity was largely due to her outspoken advocacy for police reform and prior involvement in a pending lawsuit against the city seeking to halt enforcement of the city’s camping ban, a controversial law that allows police officers to ticket homeless people for sleeping in public spaces. Sweeney-Miran has also served as a member of the Boulder Valley School District Board of Education, where she advocated for removing police officers from schools.
Sweeney-Miran said she is bringing the lawsuit as part of a broader effort to reform policing in Boulder and hold officers accountable. In a written statement, she cited the example of a fatal police shooting in December 2023 of a 51-year-old woman who had allegedly pointed a gun at a man as he was driving out of the North Boulder Recreation Center and fled from police on foot. The gun turned out to be a replica model. The shooting is currently under investigation.
“We are not a month out from the most recent police killing with no real information publicly available, no accountability on the part of the police department, and no sense of safety or trust between the people of Boulder and the police department,” Sweeney-Miran said in a news release on Tuesday. “It is important that we hold the City accountable for its constitutional violations; this accountability will ensure that things like this don’t happen again.”
Sarah Huntley, a spokesperson for the City of Boulder, said the city is reviewing the complaint and will share the city’s response through filings in the court process.
The complaint, written by Dan Williams, a lawyer with the local civil rights firm Hutchinson Black and Cook, alleges the city violated Sweeney-Miran’s First Amendment rights by removing her from the panel for “protected speech.”
A special counsel hired by the city last year investigated a complaint from a resident who cited Sweeney-Miran’s social media posts and other public statements as evidence that she has “demonstrated bias, prejudice and conflict of interest.” Until late last year, when councilmembers amended the 2020 ordinance that created the Police Oversight Panel, city code barred panelists from serving if they showed any “real or perceived bias.”
The city-appointed investigator determined that “available evidence of Lisa Sweeney-Miran’s ‘real or perceived bias or prejudice’ could undermine public trust in and effectiveness of the Police Oversight Panel” and recommended that the city council “consider removing her.” Councilmembers voted to remove her by a 5-2 vote. (Two members were absent.)
The lawsuit also alleges the city violated her “right to petition the government.” At least one councilmember allegedly told Sweeney-Miran that her involvement in the lawsuit seeking to overturn the city’s camping ban was “the biggest obstacle to her appointment,” according to the complaint. The complaint states that her withdrawal from the case was a “condition” for her appointment. Sweeney-Miran withdrew from the lawsuit on January 31, 2023, about a week after her appointment to the panel.
Lastly, the lawsuit alleges the city violated her 14th Amendment right to due process by not giving her a formal opportunity to speak at a public meeting before the May 2023 vote that led to her removal by councilmembers.
The complaint seeks a declaration from a judge that her removal “unlawfully violated her right to free speech and her right to due process.” She is also seeking compensatory damages and attorneys fees.
The ordinance creating the Police Oversight Panel was first passed in 2020, the year after a city officer drew his gun on an unarmed Black college student who was picking up trash outside his home.
Sweeney-Miran’s removal was the culmination of a monthslong dispute over the nomination of six new members to the Police Oversight Panel early last year by a selection committee. The selection committee included representatives from the NAACP Boulder County, El Centro Amistad and two members of the Police Oversight Panel.
The drawn-out and politicized appointment process was one of the reasons why city councilmembers passed an ordinance in October 2023 that gave the city manager authority to appoint new members to the panel, instead of councilmembers.
The lawsuit filed this week is the second legal complaint related to Sweeney-Miran’s removal. In May 2023, Darren O’Connor, a Boulder-based lawyer and member of NAACP Boulder County, filed a lawsuit in Boulder County District Court alleging the Boulder City Council “exceeded their jurisdiction or abused their discretion” when it voted to remove Sweeney-Miran. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Jude Landsman, a member of NAACP Boulder County and a member of the committee that nominated new members to the panel.
In November, a judge dismissed that case in part because the plaintiffs lacked standing and failed to “assert sufficient facts” to show that the city and the city council caused harm to Landsman.
Sweeney-Miran was not a plaintiff in the recently dismissed lawsuit. But the judge determined that the hearing in which she was removed “was quasi-judicial in nature” and that Sweeney-Miran was “required to have been afforded procedural due process.”
Yay for Lisa. I’m writing Nuria right now that she needs to re-appoint Lisa and stop this lawsuit in its tracks! I don’t want more of my good money after bad spent on a lawsuit we should never have let ourselves get in to. Why do I feel like I’m back in grade school? (And that makes a bad name for grade school).
The Police Oversight Panel continues to be an answer in search of a question; time to do away with it permanently!
It’s really simple. Lisa Miran Sweeney did NOT meet the “absence of bias” criteria legally REQUIRED by the Boulder Police Oversight Panel Ordinance . Her frequent social media posts revealed her abolotionist leanings, and they were so problematic that she removed them during the appointment process. Yes, free speech is a right, but it may have consequences such as rightfully disqualifying you from job opportunities or panel appointments. Someone who consistently displays a lack of objectivity towards police and a desire to abolish them, shouldn’t be charged with overseeing their conduct. I agree with another commenter…these lawsuits are a waste of city resources and tax dollars. However, the solution isn’t to wrongly reinstate Lisa but to fight this frivolous lawsuit.
Shari, I am in favor of the 14th Amendment and opposed to coercion as a means of recruitment to the POP panel. I also support the removal of SRO’s in schools. Quasi-judicial entities require hearings. Basic due process. I figure the police could have disabled the woman with the replica gun, but I would have to hear a good argument. We agree to disagree.