A bill aimed at making colleges and universities across the state in the wake of University of Colorado Boulder student Megan Trussell’s death last year passed in both chambers of the Colorado Statehouse on Monday afternoon. It now heads to Gov. Jared Polis’s desk.
The bill, Senate Bill 120, passed in the state House of Representatives in a 60 to 3 vote, with two members excused, according to the . The bill had cruised through the Statehouse, getting passed in March.
Gubernatorial candidate and State Rep. Scott Bottoms, R-Colorado Springs, voted against the passage of the bill. State Rep. Ken DeGraaf, R-Colorado Springs, and State Rep. Stephanie Luck R-Penrose, each also voted against it.
State Sen. Janice Marchman, D-Loveland, says if made law, Senate Bill 120 could save lives — and may have saved Trussell’s life before she was found dead in Boulder Canyon in February 2025.
If Polis signs the bill, SB-120 would make universities such as CU Boulder respond to missing persons’ reports the way police departments do for adults who aren’t students, Marchman said in a March interview with the Daily Camera.
Under state law, police departments get eight hours to report a missing adult to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation once they are first reported to the department. With this bill, colleges and universities would have six hours to either conduct a wellness assessment or immediately notify police, based on how serious a situation is, Marchman said.
The bill also calls for prospective police officers to be trained on the different missing persons alerts Colorado has at its disposal, .
