City officials have decided that Boulder’s Police Oversight Panel will no longer review certain internal investigations into complaints of officer misconduct, citing limited resources and a desire to focus more time on the most serious allegations.
The decision has sparked backlash from panel members, who said it weakens one of the panel’s core functions of providing community oversight of all investigations. The change means members will lose access to some body-worn camera footage and investigative records that they previously used to make recommendations on officer discipline before the police chief’s final decision.
The city’s 11-member Police Oversight Panel was established to review the police department’s internal investigations into alleged rule and policy violations. The goal was to provide a community check on the system and ensure officers are held accountable, particularly in cases involving potential racial bias.
During a Nov. 10 meeting with the panel, Police Monitor Sherry Daun said she has implemented a new policy that could prevent members from reviewing investigations if both her office and the police department’s Professional Standards Unit (PSU) agree a complaint is unfounded or that the officers should be exonerated.
She said she made the decision with advice from the City Attorney’s Office and with the knowledge of the city manager. She described the policy as a necessary step to make the best use of limited staff time.
“It allows us to focus our limited resources on the most serious cases of alleged police misconduct,” Daun told the panel. “Those are the cases that the panel’s insights and perspectives are most necessary and impactful.”
Serious allegations could involve potential criminal conduct, excessive force or bias-related behavior, while less serious complaints might involve rudeness, minor policy violations or other lower-level concerns.
Daun, who was hired in August 2023, said her office and the PSU are “frankly overwhelmed.” Time spent on case reviews includes coordinating with panel members and auditing whether panel members are opening up files for case reviews. She said the police department estimates it takes roughly three hours of staff time to review every hour of body-camera footage for redactions. Altogether, she estimated the change could save the monitor’s office about 36 hours per year.
She said the city manager is set to evaluate the Police Oversight Panel in 2026, and staffing for the police monitor will be included in that review.
“This work is challenging for everyone involved, and some friction is natural — and even productive,” Daun told Boulder Reporting Lab in an email. “When disagreements arise, I remind myself that everyone is here with shared commitments to accountability, transparency, and improving the Boulder Police Department in service of the Boulder community.”
Under the current process, the Police Oversight Panel can request to review all completed investigations into complaints made by the public against officers. Afterward, the panel can provide written recommendations to the police chief on the case disposition and on possible discipline before the chief’s final decision. The police chief ultimately decides whether to impose discipline.
Under the new policy, panel members will no longer have the option to review every case before the police chief makes a final decision. Panelists said that limits their independence from the monitor and the police department and effectively turns the panel into an “optional advisory body.”
“It will be reducing the panel from being an independent body of oversight to being some sort of advisory board for those cases that the monitor deemed worthy of panel review,” co-chair Maria Soledad-Diaz told Boulder Reporting Lab.
Panel members said that community oversight is needed to spot issues like racial bias that might otherwise go unnoticed.
“It’s hard to trust that they are going to catch those nuances in the interactions,” Soledad-Diaz said.
The city based the policy change on a legal interpretation of language in the city ordinance outlining the monitor’s and panel’s duties. The ordinance states the monitor may “refer incidents of potential police misconduct” to the panel. The City Attorney’s Office has interpreted that to mean the monitor can decide which investigations to refer, according to city officials.
Some panel members said that interpretation conflicts with another provision of the ordinance, which states the panel “shall have complete and unrestricted access to complaints” related to an administrative investigation of a complaint. They also cite a provision stating the panel and monitor “shall remain independent of one another.” They pointed to the city council’s original intent in creating the panel: to ensure “historically excluded communities have a voice in oversight,” as stated in the ordinance.
Soledad-Diaz said the panel has formally requested that the city hire independent legal counsel to review the city attorney’s interpretation, an unprecedented step in the panel’s approximately five years of operation.
The ordinance creating the Police Oversight Panel passed in 2020, a year after a Boulder police officer drew his gun on an unarmed Black college student who was picking up trash outside his home.
The current dispute is the latest flashpoint in long-running tensions between the panel and city officials.
After it began meeting in 2021, the panel struggled to keep seats filled because of workload and other challenges. In late 2022, a founding member resigned in protest after city officials advised her not to release information publicly about a high-profile misconduct case. Tensions escalated in 2023, when city council voted to remove a panel member following complaints from residents who said she was biased against police. A federal lawsuit is pending over the member’s removal. The panel later paused case reviews while working with a city-hired consultant to rewrite the ordinance governing its duties. The updated version, adopted in 2023, gave the city manager more control over appointments.
The panel had operated relatively smoothly since then. But the number of complaints filed against officers has continued to rise, with 123 so far in 2025, up from 121 in 2024, according to a presentation prepared by co-chairs Soledad-Diaz and Lizzie Friend.
Some members said it may be time to again speak with the city council about revisiting the ordinance that created the panel.
As I understand it, the “agreement rate” between BPD and POP on reviewed cases is north of 95%. It would be helpful to have that statistic in this article to provide some context as to why a more limited approach toward case review might be warranted.
This is absolutely the right move. The police are there to protect the community, and if they are using all their time to defend themselves from accusations from said community, those with mischief on their minds will know this, and make twice as much. Stop hounding the police! They’re there to protect you.
I fully support this decision and agree with Terri Brncic that with an agreement rate likely above 95%, a more limited approach is appropriate. The two cases often cited as examples of racial bias happened years ago under a different department, two chiefs ago under Testa. Since then, BPD has significantly improved recruitment, training, and data-driven accountability. Those cases helped prompt this panel, but real progress has been made.
I also question why an oversight panel is considered essential for policing but not for other city departments. Some might argue budgeting and other core functions deserve similar scrutiny, especially when taxes and fees keep rising just to maintain basic services.