I decided to write this article because my good friend and great leader Chief Chris Noeller of the Pueblo Police Department posted a very well-written and informative article today on one of the most important and urgent issues facing Colorado Law Enforcement and its citizens since HB20-217. I would encourage you to read and absorb what he is telling us, it is worth the read!
HB24-1372 would restrict law enforcement from protecting the citizens of Colorado, and the officers in Colorado, while putting the suspects first on the safety and well-being priority list. I imagine that list would look something like this:
High Priority for Safety and Well-being- Offenders/Suspects
Low Priority for Safety and Well-being- Law Enforcement Officers
No priority for Safety and Well-Being- Victims/ Victim families/ citizens
HB24-1372 is the result of some lawmakers believing there is a big problem related to protecting suspects who resist arrest, and certainly bigger than the issue of protecting the rights and welfare of victims and citizens in Colorado. HB24-1372 would prevent victims from receiving justice by allowing their offenders to prevent being arrested unless they willingly comply with being arrested, thus, they must agree to be arrested and not resist. If they resist arrest, and this resistance goes to the ground which in my 35 years of experience 99.99% do, this is also supported by numerous studies.
Therefore if the suspect resists and ends up on the ground, the officer may not make any further attempt to restrain them on the ground if they are in the prone position, however, based on my experience and 30 years of teaching arrest control, again 99.9999% go to the prone position (on their stomach) because it allows them to hide their hands under their body. So now, the officer may not continue to restrain or arrest the suspect or use any mechanical device to secure them which includes handcuffs unless they are at that moment justified in using deadly force, lest the officer be held liable for violating the law.under Colorado Revised Statute 18-1-707 (3)(a)(b)(c), which reads:
(3) A peace officer is justified in using deadly physical force to make an arrest only when all other means of apprehension are unreasonable given the circumstances and:
(a) The arrest is for a felony involving conduct including the use or threatened use of deadly physical force;
(b) The suspect poses an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to the peace officer or another person;
(c) The force employed does not create a substantial risk of injury to other persons.
As a Use of Force Instructor and SME, I have grave concerns about HB24-1372. It will allow many violent suspects to escape arrest unless they “Choose” to comply with being arrested, or they pose an immediate threat of serious bodily harm or death to the officer or a third party at the time the arrest is being made. Let me give you a simple example. If the suspect commits a Domestic Violence homicide, while this is a felony that (1) involves conduct that includes the use of deadly physical force; it is a narrowly focused crime; meaning the crime was narrowly directed towards the victim(s) they murdered. Thus, unless the suspect makes threatened use of deadly physical force against the officer or another person; that creates (2) an immediate threat of death or serious bodily injury to the peace officer or another person; justification of deadly force at that time would be a high bar to reach. As a result, unless the suspect willingly complied with arrest, or remained on his feet during the arrest, the officers would not be allowed to arrest the suspect without violating the law themselves. Thus, under this law, they must allow him to leave or find a way to get him into custody without him ending up on the ground in a prone position.
So, I wonder how the victims of other violent or even non-violent crimes feel about the suspect having a law that protects their safety and well-being, but disregards the safety and well-being of their victims or the victim’s families in cases of homicide. Consider this, If a victim is kidnapped, and sexually assaulted, and the suspect is identified and later contacted by police, unless the police are at that moment faced with the suspect being armed, and or making threats of immediate deadly physical force against the officers or another person, they too cannot be arrested if they go to the ground. The list of examples goes on and on. If any of these politicians have ever been the victim of or related to a victim of violent crime, how could they ever even consider this to be good or reasonable legislation? I have been a victim of attempted deadly force resulting in Serious bodily injury; I am also a relative to a victim of violence from a kidnapping and sexual assault, and this legislation is repugnant at its very best.
If you feel the same, contact your State Representative and tell them in no uncertain terms how you (the citizen they are supposed to represent) feel. I thank you for reading this, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to Police Chief Chris Noeller for his dedication and sheer hard work. I also want to thank every law enforcement officer, victims advocate, and prosecutor who handles these cases every day for the uphill fight. Know that it truly does matter!
Colorado HB24-1372: Protecting Suspects since 2024
