News & Commentary

As witnessed by a Westword item from October, Mayor Michael Hancock and Denver's business and outreach communities have spent months discussing and debating a push to ban overnight camping on public property. Now that the issue is reportedly scheduled to be addressed in a City Council committee meeting on Tuesday, the topic is sparking criticism from other quarters.

     Under pressure from the ACLU of Colorado and local community activist groups, the Roaring Fork School Board unanimously voted to enter into an agreement urging the police departments of the Roaring Fork Valley to exercise “extraordinary discretion” before assigning a school resource officer (SRO) to additional police work that may implicate the immigration status of a student’s family. The agreement recognizes that assigning SROs to law enforcement work in which “a student’s family immigration status may come into question . . . may diminish the necessary trust the SROs have worked so long to build with the student and family.”

On Monday, the 2012 Martin Luther King Day Holiday, the ACLU Race To Justice Coalition called on Denver City Council to demand a start to the process of bringing a new Independent Monitor to the city..

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On behalf of a satiric internet publication, The Howling Pig, and its publisher Tom Mink, the ACLU of Colorado announced today that after three trips to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, a $425,000 settlement finally ends a marathon legal battle over free speech that began on this date eight years ago, when Greeley and Weld County authorities showed up at Mink’s home with a warrant to search for evidence of “criminal libel.”

To resolve an ACLU of Colorado lawsuit filed earlier this year alleging racial profiling, biased policing, and illegal search of a residence, Denver agreed to a settlement that provides for new police policies, new training for officers, and payment of $20,000 to the ACLU’s clients.

The ACLU of Colorado announces our support of the second annual Colorado Gives Day – an initiative to increase philanthropy in Colorado through online giving to Colorado charities. Once again presented by Community First Foundation and FirstBank, Colorado Gives Day is a 24-hour period on Dec. 6 to “give where you live” by making online donations on Community First Foundation’s online giving resource, GivingFirst.org. As a profiled charity on GivingFirst.org, The ACLU of Colorado will participate in this initiative.

The ACLU of Colorado received complaints that on Sunday morning November 13, at the first court appearance of Occupy Denver protesters who were arrested the night before, Magistrate John Hoffman refused to allow reporters and members of the press to bring paper, notebooks or any type of writing utensils into the courtroom. Westword reporter Kelsey Whipple reported that she was forbidden to take notes during the court proceeding. http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/11/occupy_denver_arrests_bond.php. In a November 16 letter to Presiding Judge John John Marcucci, the ACLU of Colorado protested this violation of First Amendment rights. For more information, visit https://www.aclu-co.org/case/judge-marcucci-aclu-re-paper-pens.

Based on news stories, video, and reports from participants and legal observers at Occupy Denver, attorneys at the ACLU are concerned that what had initially been characterized as a policy of admirable restraint in regard to activists at the Occupy Denver site has now evolved into an unwise policy of unnecessarily confrontational and provocative police tactics.