Ordinance 8609 was adopted by the City Council on Oct. 19, 2023. The ordinance amends Title 2, Chapter 11 of the Boulder Revised Code, establishing the Office of the Independent Monitor and the Police Oversight Panel.
The Council created the role of the Monitor to review the handling of complaints, to analyze trends in policing and to recommend improvements to police practices, as well as to increase transparency around police oversight.
The monitor assists the panel by providing summaries of complaints and complaint investigations, data on monthly statistics, analysis of local policing trends and access to national best practices. The monitor also organizes and facilitates training for panel members.
The Police Oversight Panel was created by the Council to increase community involvement in police oversight and to ensure that historically excluded communities have a voice in police oversight. The ordinance established the Police Oversight Panel an independent entity supported by the Office of the Independent Police Monitor.
Panel responsibilities include reviewing completed internal complaint investigations, recommending disposition and discipline for those complaints, and to making policy and training recommendations to the department. The panel may also identify analyses that they would like the monitor to conduct.
To comply with the Police Oversight Ordinance, the City Manager will launch an independent review of the Police Oversight system. The goal of this review is to understand and evaluate what currently works and identify possible improvements to enhance oversight. Included will be facilitated conversations with Panel members, BPD members, elected officials and other stakeholders. More details of this will be forthcoming as a facilitator is hired.
This review will include a look at recent changes in the case-referral practice that have taken place in the last months to ensure alignment with the ordinance. The ordinance requires the Panel to review only fully investigated complaints, a process which supports fairness and due process, maintains the Panel's authority, and ensures access to summary information for all classified cases.
The Office of the Independent Police Monitor continues to review every allegation of misconduct and remains fully independent from the police department. The updates to the referral process need to reflect the ordinance’s structure: the Panel maintains full access to materials for cases with completed administrative investigations. Cases that do not advance to an administrative investigation are not eligible for full Panel review. The Panel will continue to receive case summaries, preserving a layer of oversight. As the system continues to evolve, there remains space for collaboration and dialogue. All parties remain committed to transparency, accountability, and strengthening police oversight in service to the Boulder community.
A 2024 state law requiring the automatic sealing of certain court records in low-level cases was intended to help reduce barriers for individuals. However, it has also created an oversight challenge, in some cases, by prohibiting access to evidence needed to review misconduct complaints. Addressing this unintended consequence will require a legislative fix, and the Monitor will continue to follow the issue.
The city recently clarified that unfounded complaints will be closed without the civilian oversight panel voting on them in accordance to the current ordinance. For example, if the city receives a complaint claiming that an officer was rude to a driver during a traffic stop, but upon review of the body worn camera footage, the Independent Police Monitor can clearly see the officer acted professionally, this complaint will now be closed without bringing it to the Police Oversight Panel for additional review, preserving the Panel’s attention and time for more serious or ambiguous cases.
Before September 2025, the Independent Police Monitor sent every complaint to the Police Oversight Panel for a vote on whether they wanted to review it, including complaints that were obviously unfounded or exonerated. This led to significant delays in reviewing individual cases and led to a slowdown in the city and the Panel’s ability to swiftly address more serious allegations.
In 2024, complaints against Boulder police increased (for more information, see additional FAQ, below). As a result, the police oversight system got overwhelmed. There were too many cases, and not enough people to handle them. When everything started backing up, city officials took a hard look at the ordinance to see if there were better ways to continue providing exceptional independent police oversight but also handle the workload. That's when they discovered they'd been running the Panel review process wrong. They'd been sending every single complaint to the civilian panel for review, even though the ordinance rules never required that. The ordinance specifies that the Panel's scope includes review of complaints where full investigations are underway, not preliminary checks on lower-level complaints. The changes to the process now reflect the ordinance's structure and support fairness and due process.
Yes. The Independent Police Monitor will still notify Panel members about all cases, including the ones she has closed as unfounded or exonerated. The difference is they won't spend time voting on whether to review cases that evidence has already disproven. The Panel will still have the opportunity review all serious, nuanced or complicated complaints that merit a full investigation. The Panel will also continue to receive summary information for all cases closed by the Independent Police Monitor, preserving a layer of independent oversight and transparency for every single complaint.
Cases where clear evidence demonstrates that the officers’ conduct did not violate Boulder Police Department policy, and that have been reviewed and vetted by the Independent Police Monitor, may be closed by the Independent Police Monitor without going to the Panel. The Independent Police Monitor continues to review every allegation of misconduct and remains fully independent from the police department. The Monitor examines all complaints that come to the department, makes a determination about the case, and decides the appropriate path forward for each case. Even for unfounded or exonerated complaints, the Monitor can still make policy recommendations, and/or recommend coaching for officers whose actions did not violate any policies but could still be improved.
Examples of complaints that the Independent Police Monitor has previously recommended be closed as unfounded or exonerated include:
Yes. The Office of the Independent Police Monitor continues to review every allegation of misconduct and remains fully independent from the police department. The Monitor examines all complaints that come to the department, makes a determination about the case, and decides the appropriate path forward for each case.
Sherry Daun is Boulder’s Independent Police Monitor and has served in her current role with the city since 2023. She has nearly 20 years of experience with extensive background in investigating police misconduct, managing large caseloads, and implementing process improvements. Sherry is a former attorney who served as the Director of Investigations at the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) in Chicago, prior to coming to Boulder. In that role, she improved timeliness, bringing the maximum age of cases awaiting review from over a year to 30 days. She also implemented a community mediation pilot program and responded to officer-involved shootings as the lead scene manager. Sherry is a Boulder resident and BVSD parent. She remains committed to the values of providing transparent and effective independent police oversight.
The city received more complaints in 2024 for two main reasons. First, successful community outreach by the Boulder Police Department, Independent Police Monitor, Police Oversight Panel members, and other city staff increased public awareness about how to provide feedback or file complaints. Second, a small number of individuals — five community members — submitted complaints that led to 25 investigated incidents. This concentration of complaints from a handful of people contributed to the overall increase in volume. One person alone filed 8 complaints in 22 months. Every complaint is taken seriously and reviewed. In the past few years, the city has found that about 1 in 5 complaints result in a need for additional and robust investigation. The Panel is a valuable partner in evaluating in these. In addition, in January 2024, the Boulder Police Department agreed with the Monitor’s recommendation to document every complaint in the shared case management system, including complaints that lacked sufficient detail for investigation. This also contributed to a “rise” documented complaints.
The City of Boulder is absolutely committed to transparency in policing and independent police oversight. This is why the city staffs an Independent Police Monitor office and supports a civilian Police Oversight Panel. City leadership, as well as the Boulder Police Department, welcome community feedback about policing and continually strive to meet the community’s expectations for responsible, transparent, and effective public safety operations. The clarified process allows for continued independent oversight and Panel investigations while saving resources spent by police investigators, time editing body camera footage, preparing documents, and having the Police Oversight Panel and the Police Chief review and respond to obviously unfounded complaints. This change in the process is about getting the panel's input on serious and potentially substantiated allegations quickly, so that effective investigations can be escalated in a timely way, not addressed months later.
The city reviews its police oversight system every five years. The next scheduled review is in 2026. The process is intended to determine whether a need exists to make changes and/or otherwise make adjustments to the system to improve its continued performance. As the system continues to evolve, there remains space for collaboration and dialogue among all parties.
The City of Boulder remains committed to transparency, accountability, and strengthening police oversight in service to the Boulder community. Every allegation of misconduct is taken seriously and will be thoroughly investigated. The goal of these changes is to ensure the Police Oversight Panel can review the most serious and potentially credible accusations in the most timely way possible, so community input and recommendations reach the Police Chief without unnecessary delays. If there is a serious allegation that has possible merit, the Police Chief needs to hear about it sooner rather than later to ensure he’s in a position to take appropriate action and community values are upheld.
