McKinzie Rees was a 25-year-old rookie at the Edgewater Police Department when she was first sexually assaulted by a fellow officer in an Uber.
It happened as she and fellow officer Nathan Geerdes, her superior, headed to a bar where she thought a number of other colleagues were meeting them for drinks. When Rees went to the bathroom at the bar, Geerdes followed her and assaulted her a second time.
Rees reported the assault to her supervisors, but she wasn鈥檛 taken seriously and faced retaliation from her fellow officers. Eventually, her duties were reassigned and she was labeled as 鈥渦ntruthful.鈥� She told 萝莉少女 she was eventually blacklisted to the point that she had to leave law enforcement altogether.
鈥淭he minute that I started speaking out about retaliation, I was then retaliated against,鈥� Rees said. 鈥淚n law enforcement in general, once you start to speak out about misconduct in the good old boys club, you are then the target.鈥�
While Rees was forced out, Geerdes was able to leave the Edgewater Police Department and get another job in the Black Hawk Police Department. Years later, in 2022, an investigation uncovered that Geerdes assaulted multiple women and was eventually fired from the new job. He pled guilty to unlawful sexual conduct and, earlier this month, was sentenced to four years of probation and barred from working in law enforcement.
After her experience, Rees wanted to do something to prevent this from happening to others, so she turned to the state legislature, where she worked with Rep. Leslie Herod to help craft a newly-introduced bill that would reform transparency and accountability around police misconduct.
鈥淚t does put a target on my back, but the way I see it is that I had already lost everything. I no longer had a career. I couldn't get rehired if I tried,鈥� Rees told 萝莉少女. 鈥淭here has to be change, and if I was going to be the one to create change, then I was going to do everything in my power to ensure that what happened to me didn't happen to the next person.鈥�
Herod said this year鈥檚 bill builds on the 2020 Police Accountability Act, which she also sponsored. The 2020 law focused on misconduct between police and the public, while this year鈥檚 legislation is focused on misconduct within departments, between officers.
鈥淲e had officers from Edgewater and Denver and other agencies across Colorado come to us and say 鈥業 was harmed within my agency, and something needs to change鈥�,鈥� Herod said. 鈥淚 find this bill to be one that supports law enforcement, that protects law enforcement, and that encourages them to step up and blow the whistle when someone is breaking the law.鈥�
Under the bill, if an officer is aware of 鈥渕isconduct, criminal conduct, or other unprofessional conduct鈥� of another officer, they would be required by law to report it to their agency or department. If they don鈥檛, they could be charged with a class 2 misdemeanor.
There are currently no legal consequences if an officer fails to report internal misconduct. The 2020 measure made it a misdemeanor only if officers fail to intervene in police brutality or misconduct with members of the public.
The new bill would also require law enforcement agencies to conduct an investigation when they receive allegations of misconduct. If an agency fails to do so, the individual who brought the allegation would have a 鈥減rivate right of action,鈥� meaning they can take legal action on their own. The bill would also remove immunity for law enforcement officers from legal recourse.
It would also add protections for whistle-blowers by giving them the right to take personal legal action against their department or agency if they face discipline or other retaliation for reporting misconduct.
Currently, law enforcement agencies have to post information about officers鈥� misconduct to a database under the Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST, Board. The bill would expand the Attorney General鈥檚 office鈥檚 oversight of the database and require it to investigate when agencies fail to report.
鈥淲e have found that the bad officer database has been used to retaliate against officers who are whistleblowers,鈥� Herod said. 鈥淭he AG has no authority to audit the records of these agencies to make sure that people who deserve to be in the database, in fact are.鈥�
The measure would also add new requirements around record retention. Law enforcement agencies don鈥檛 currently have to keep records of misconduct for any length of time. The bill would require those records to be retained for at least three years.
It would also prohibit law enforcement agencies from charging fees to release audio and video to the public, including bodycam and dashcam footage, and released footage would have to be unedited.
While the bill was brought by former and current officers like McKinzie Rees, members of law enforcement are also lining up in opposition to the bill. For example, the Colorado chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police, the largest professional police organization in the state and the nation, opposes it.
鈥淓verybody is going to have a different definition of what unprofessional conduct or misconduct is,鈥� Mike Deedon, the Vice President of the group in Colorado. 鈥淲ithout it being listed and explained and defined, the legislation opens it up to interpretation, creating a slippery slope. What exactly are you going to be held accountable for?
The group is most concerned that because the bill does not define 鈥渦nprofessional conduct鈥�, it would cause confusion and superfluous misconduct reports. Deedon said such a broad term would make it unclear what officers are required to report or not.
Deedon also said the group would be more open to supporting the bill if it included more clear and targeted definitions of misconduct.
Republican Rep. Gabe Evans, a former Arvada police officer who is also running for Congress in the 8th District, argues the bill would create too much liability at a time when law enforcement officers are understaffed.
鈥淭his bill massively increases not only the criminal, but the civil liability to which officers are subjected,鈥� Evans said. 鈥淚t drops the quality of folks that we're going to be able to recruit and retain when they look at yet more liability that's going to require them to look over their shoulder to see if maybe, maybe I'm gonna get reported by my buddy.鈥�
He said the bill would undermine trust within departments and discourage officers from confiding in each other and their superiors.
Evans also took issue with the bill鈥檚 timing and stakeholder. It was introduced with only about 20 days left in the legislative session, which Evans said isn鈥檛 enough time to properly debate the policy. He questioned why the bill鈥檚 sponsors didn鈥檛 engage with lawmakers who have law enforcement experience, like himself, or with the Fraternal Order of Police.
鈥淚 argue that they do not like law enforcement,鈥� Evans said. 鈥淚f we're actually honestly and sincerely trying to work collaboratively, and bipartisanly, in order to increase and strengthen the whistleblower protections for officers to be able to report a toxic chain of command, a toxic work culture or something like that, let's have that conversation.鈥�
For McKinzie Rees, however, this bill is far from an attack on the police. For her, it鈥檚 about making law enforcement better.
鈥淎t the end of the day, this is a bill that me, current cops and former cop decided was a necessity,鈥� Rees said. 鈥淚t just needs to be known to people that it鈥檚 not this crazy agenda going after cops. This is cops looking at other cops because the thing that good cops hate most is a bad cop.鈥�
After Rees came forward, the Jefferson County District Attorney started investigating the Edgewater Police Department in 2021 and, in 2022, requested that the Attorney General open an investigation into the department, which was 鈥渇raught with bullying, retaliation, and bending of the rules.鈥�
