Colorado mountain sheriff says agency has made strides in the right direction for community policing
Deputies for some of Colorado's mountain communities found out in April they wouldn't be charged after using deadly force earlier this year. Their boss believes the ruling in the favor of his deputies is a sign of his agency's long-term steps in the right direction of community policing. This comes after one of his deputies did ultimately face consequences for his actions.
Deputies ended up firing multiple times on Christine Lewis before killing her back in March. This happened, according to reports, after a felony traffic stop, where Lewis, 36, pointed a gun at deputies and officers for a combined 17 minutes. After utilizing less-lethal options, including beanbag rounds, deputies opened fire on her.
In the April report from Colorado's 5th Judicial District, District Attorney Heidi McCollum clears the law enforcement officers of any wrongdoing, and explained that deputies exercised, "great restraint in not firing lethal rounds at her sooner than they did."
Clear Creek County Sheriff Matthew Harris.
CBS
Clear Creek County Sheriff Matthew Harris told CBS Colorado this is exactly the kind of change that's come from training, culture changes and personal changes at CCCSO. All these changes have come in the wake of the 2022 shooting and killing of Christian Glass by a deputy.
"Every single one (of our employees) will think about the Christian Glass case for a long time," Harris explained. "As I've said before, what happened to Christian Glass was a tragedy, and it was an organizational failure."
Harris said he sees the operation to subdue Lewis as unfortunate, but one where his deputies did what they were trained to do, and worked to protect the public in a lawful way. He believes, when the DA references "restraint," she's talking about his employees' efforts to create an ending without taking a life.
"It means doing everything possible to ensure that the outcome ends as safe to the community, and to the individual, and to the officers as possible," Harris said.
In dashboard camera recorded from an Idaho Springs Police Department cruiser, Lewis swings her arm, pointing a handgun at deputies and officers multiple times while law enforcement takes cover behind vehicles. Eventually, Lewis walked closer and closer to the side of the vehicle many officers were using for cover, giving her a better line of sight and clearer shot, and that's when a captain with the CCCSO fired his duty rifle at Lewis, alongside other officers and deputies, and Lewis fell to the ground. Law enforcement advances on her, and Lewis rolls from her side toward officers and again points her handgun directly at officers, who are now only a few feet away. Law enforcement officers open fire once again, killing Lewis.
Clear Creek also had it's Community Crisis and Health Assistance Team (CCHAT) on standby. It's a program put in place after the death of Glass to help end conflicts like this without a loss of life. But because it was an armed and dangerous criminal situation regarding a felony warrant, volunteers were not safely able to make it on scene to negotiate with Lewis.
Harris said, while there's many different aspects of the office that have been corrected, it's not a time to become complacent.
"When you are happy with your success, that will lead to your failure," Harris said. "So this has to be a department where we look for continuous improvements. We we have to celebrate our victories. We don't spike the football. We continue to get better, and my mantra has been, 'We get a little bit better every day.'"
As for backsliding, Harris said he can make a promise that CCCSO will not fall back into it's old ways, where the community cannot trust them with their own safety.
"If (our) people make critical mistakes, they will not be here any longer," Harris said. "People make minor mistakes, of course, and we correct, we fix them, and we go back to training, and we make them better. But you come here and you make critical mistake, we can't have you."
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