The State Where Protests Have Already Forced Major Police Reform
“If officers are rethinking [their career] because of a law of integrity and accountability, then they shouldn’t be in the profession as a police officer,” Colorado State Representative Leslie Herod, who wrote the new law, told me. “Their duty is to serve and protect, not kill. It is very important that law-enforcement officers think before they act.”
As it happened, Herod, a Democrat and a Black woman, had joined protesters outside the state capitol when a gunman fired several shots into the crowd. State patrol officers rushed her back inside to safety, she told me in a phone interview last week. On a call later with fellow Democrats, her colleagues offered support and asked how they could help. Frustrated, Herod replied: “I don’t want a card. I don’t want any niceties. I want a bill, and I need your support to get a bill introduced that addresses these concerns.”
