Political mailer complaints

Oct. 28—The NAACP of Boulder County has escalated its calls for Boulder Deputy Police Chief Stephen Redfearn to resign, with the group continuing to say it believes his involvement in the Elijah McClain case makes him unfit to serve in his role despite city officials denying key factual allegations the group has made against Redfearn.

The NAACP of Boulder County has begun circulating a petition to rally public support for Redfearn's resignation.

The ongoing controversy has drawn commentary from high-ranking officials in Boulder and beyond as its effects reverberate through the community. It has even captured the attention of the state NAACP president, who says the Boulder branch has been acting on its own accord and has not sought input or approval for its statements from the NAACP writ large.

The Boulder County NAACP first issued a statement earlier this month demanding that Redfearn resign. That statement came shortly after Redfearn testified on behalf of the prosecution in the trial of two Aurora police officers charged in McClain's August 2019 death.

According to CPR News, Redfearn testified in late September that he had been a captain on duty on the night of McClain's encounter with the officers, and after receiving a call about the incident, he treated it as a "critical incident," updating the dispatch code from "suspicious person" to "assault on an officer."

CPR reported that Redfearn admitted to changing the code based on information from officers without conducting his own investigation of the incident, looking at body camera footage or interviewing officers on-scene. He said an officer told him McClain had tried to grab a gun and that there was no dispatch code category for attempting to disarm an officer.

The Boulder County NAACP wrote in a statement that it was "incredulous that Night Duty Police Captain Redfearn would not, at a minimum, have engaged in a cursory assessment of the scene of the incident prior to adjusting the call log" and that it "reeks of a cover-up."

The group also expressed suspicion over why Redfearn's bio on the city website does not reflect that he used to work for the Aurora police and said the city appeared to be trying to hide this information from the public.

In response, Boulder City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde issued a lengthy statement denying the NAACP chapter's claims and saying the group's statement "misrepresents the facts of what occurred." She wrote, for example, that Redfearn's changing of the dispatch code was "standard protocol" and that it's a practice "commonly used on nearly every police shift" that is considered a best practice for "data integrity." Rivera-Vandermyde also noted that there have been no allegations of misconduct against Redfearn related to the investigation of McClain's death.

But executive officers of the Boulder County NAACP were unconvinced by Rivera-Vandermyde's rebuttal and have doubled down on their push for Redfearn to resign or be terminated. In a recent statement, the group states that Rivera-Vandermyde has emailed people who have signed the petition and attempted to "spin Deputy Chief Redfearn's awful and unacceptable acts" into a more flattering narrative. According to the group, Redfearn "delayed justice" and was "quietly hired (by Boulder) in a manner far from transparent."

Additionally, the group wrote, the city of Aurora paid a $750,000 settlement to protesters over a lawsuit alleging that numerous officers, including Redfearn, used violence to disperse people gathered at a peaceful violin vigil in honor of McClain. However, according to court records, Redfearn was dismissed as a defendant on the case before the settlement occurred.

"We're just very disheartened by the city manager, the statements that the city manager has made and her complete, full-throated endorsement of Mr. Redfearn. ... She's splitting hairs and bringing into question things that are not even on the table and not really the issues that we're debating. ... She keeps saying, 'Well, he was never accused of wrongdoing.' That's not the bar," Boulder County NAACP President Annett James told the Daily Camera.

Responding to Rivera-Vandermyde's defense that Redfearn was following protocol, James said, "If that's protocol, we don't want that type of protocol. And we don't want that level of experience in protocols that would allow for this kind of an event. ... It's bad protocol."

Boulder County NAACP Criminal Justice Committee Chair Darren O'Connor said it's his opinion that Redfearn was involved in a "cover-up" and that Rivera-Vandermyde is "changing the narrative" about his behavior.

"It's so Orwellian to say that lying about the cause of approaching a peaceful young Black man is about data integrity," O'Connor said. He also said he felt that Boulder failing to mention Redfearn's history with the Aurora police "reeks of protectionism and business as usual."

'Was truth even the point?'

In a Hotline email on Oct. 16, Mayor Pro Tem Mark Wallach wrote a scathing rebuke directed at O'Connor, attributing the criticisms of Redfearn and calls for his resignation to him.

Wallach began the statement with the preamble that these remarks were in his personal capacity and not in his role as Mayor Pro Tem or on behalf of City Council.

"Besmirching the personal reputations of others (generally without success), and mistreating those who have actually made contributions to this community, ... do not amplify your voice, they delegitimize it. The most recent example of this is your baseless criticism of Deputy Chief Stephen Redfearn of the Boulder Police Department," Wallach wrote.

"You have received a response from the city manager to your accusations against Deputy Chief Redfearn and Chief Maris Herold. That response refuted your claims sentence by sentence, demonstrating that there was simply no truth to any of it. Your accusations were meritless. But was truth even the point? Or was it the opportunity to demonstrate your performative outrage, calling for the firing of Deputy Chief Redfearn as well as Chief Maris Herold? Truth, and the reputations of those you attack, appear to be simply collateral damage to the performance."

Wallach wrote that there was "not a shred of cause" to fire Redfearn or Herold and added, "In this community, we do not listen to the loudest voice simply because it is loud."

He went on to add, "Even sadder is your enlistment of the local NAACP in pursuit of your vendetta against Deputy Chief Redfearn. I regard the NAACP as the most important organization in the history of this nation in the fight for civil rights and justice. To marshal its resources in support of a meritless claim against the police department does no credit to you and harms an institution I have revered my entire adult life."

Reached for comment, Wallach called O'Connor "impervious to refutation" of his arguments.

"We're now beyond the point of rational disagreement. This is not, 'I think he's good, you think he's bad.' (O'Connor) made several allegations and they were simply taken apart piece by piece," Wallach said. "It didn't seem to matter to him that he no longer had any facts on his side. He simply wanted to continue a crusade against an individual no matter what the cost of that individual's reputation the harm it does to his family. And that's unacceptable."

O'Connor called some of Wallach's statements "defamatory" and said it was "misogynistic" to suggest that O'Connor had been responsible for the Boulder County NAACP's statements when a woman, Annett James, is president of the branch. Moreover, he told the Daily Camera, he felt it was inappropriate for Wallach to use the Hotline public communication tool to launch a "personal attack" against him.

"(Wallach) had no business doing that. And the fact that nothing has been done about that speaks to the permissiveness of our city staff and city government to allow abuse of public resources. And it's shameful," O'Connor said. "I couldn't care less what Mark Wallace says about me. I do care about how he uses public resources to undermine communities that I'm involved in."

A 'bold statement' with 'many ramifications'

Whether the broader NAACP will stand behind the Boulder branch's actions has yet to be seen. According to Rocky Mountain NAACP State Conference President Portia Prescott, the Boulder County NAACP did not receive approval before the group came out with its initial statement against Redfearn.

"(The statement) was never officially submitted to the proper channels. And since this statement is such a bold statement that comes with so many ramifications, the national team of lawyers is reviewing it," Prescott said. "We're always wanting to stand for the victims for people. So the concern is, because this statement has escalated ... it's now time for the NAACP to review what was even said."

Prescott emphasized that the Boulder branch acted on its own and that its statement did not represent the official position of the NAACP. She said the Boulder branch has been "put on pause" temporarily while this situation is being addressed.

James denied that Prescott had the authority to put the Boulder branch on pause and said the group would be continuing its activities. The Daily Camera attempted to contact the national NAACP office on Friday to verify that statement but was not able to immediately reach a representative for comment.

Redfearn, for his part, said he has retained former Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett as his counsel. He said he hopes it will not become necessary to pursue a lawsuit, but that he had spent a "difficult couple of weeks" navigating the fallout from this dispute and that he found the Boulder County NAACP's accusations of covering up a wrongdoing "highly offensive."

"It's just really puzzling ... (that these accusations are being) based upon things being taken out of context and little snippets of things being put out into the world without the full picture. It's been really irresponsible on their part, in my opinion," Redfearn said. "I'm hoping we reach a point here where this thing has been discussed enough. Whatever somebody's opinion is is their opinion, but I'm hoping we can move forward."