“Independent” is a tricky word.
Watchdogs had high hopes when John Hickenlooper announced an “Independent Monitor” to keep in check misconduct among Denver cops.
His appointee, Richard Rosenthal, so touts his autonomy that he bristles when linked with city government.
“It is not my city,” he insists.
He issued a report last week in which he claims to have “slammed” the Denver Sheriff’s Department — and, by implication, city attorneys — for granting disciplinary immunity to a deputy who jailed a black woman on a white woman’s warrant.
He took the city to task for strategically not launching an internal investigation as a way to defend itself against an ACLU lawsuit lodged by the woman and five others jailed because of mistaken identity. He rightly exposed officials for covering their backsides.
“I’ve made it clear they can’t use litigation as an excuse not to police themselves,” he says.
Still, I would hardly call Rosenthal’s report a slamming.
It has no teeth and won’t result in any discipline for the bone-headed deputy.
What’s more, the deal he claims to have busted open gave the deputy no more immunity than already enjoyed by all the other deputies who have locked up the wrong people.
Rosenthal overlooks the big picture in a scandal in which the city has plucked at least nine people out of their lives, made them disappear behind bars for days, even months, and forced them to answer to the wrong names. Officers jailed one victim in lieu of a dead man. They told the pregnant wife of another that he was lying to her about his identity. And they kept another in jail 39 days without a court date.
Rosenthal stayed silent for almost a year — he says because a city ordinance doesn’t allow him to report on open cases.
When he did weigh in, he focused on the effectively moot point about disclipinary immunity rather than broader constitutional or moral issues.
The man responsible for accountability failed to say that not a single head has rolled.
Of the many police officers who made careless arrests, one got a written reprimand, one was docked a day’s pay, and one’s case is still pending.
Of the many deputies who failed to listen to prisoners — let alone check their IDs — none was disciplined. All have immunity because the city had no policy against jailing the wrong suspects.
These are points that deserve slamming. By skimming over them, Rosenthal has, as we say in journalism, “buried the lead.”
However independent his title sounds, he works at the mayor’s pleasure. And, though he says he has fought and won far more battles behind the scenes, we can only judge him for a public record in which he has disagreed with Al LaCabe, Hickenlooper’s safety manager, twice in almost four years.
Rosenthal is a pragmatist interested mainly in changing policy. By nature, he says, he “choose(s) battles.” And by ordinance, he says he has fought quietly for better practices:
“As long as I see progress, I’m not going to embarrass them.”
But if Rosenthal has worked so long and hard on the issue, why do victims keep coming forward? And why did it take nearly a year of prodding by lawyers and journalists for Hickenlooper to form a “working group” on the issue?
It’s the city’s responsibility not to snatch innocent people off our streets. And it’s Rosenthal’s to speak out when they do.
I, for one, would like more moxie in my monitor and less rubberstamping of the city’s blatant recklessness
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Susan Greene writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-1989 or greene@denverpost.com.
