By Cassis Tingley for Denverite
Denver police are facing continued backlash over two officers’ use of face masks during a mid-April drug operation in north Denver.
A recent city ordinance banned law enforcement from using masks to conceal their identities. But police Chief Ron Thomas said that law didn’t apply because the officers were working undercover and needed to protect their identities.
Here’s what happened, and how community members and local leaders are reacting.
Local police mistaken for immigration agents
On April 16, someone called the Colorado Rapid Response Network’s hotline to report suspected immigration enforcement activity at the intersection of 33rd and Curtis streets in Five Points.
The caller reported unmarked vehicles, five people handcuffed and sitting on the curb, and at least seven officers, two of whom were wearing DIY-style facial coverings and tactical gear over plain clothes. It looked a lot like one of the many federal immigration raids that have taken place across the country under President Donald Trump’s “mass deportation” campaign.
But when hotline volunteers showed up in the north Denver neighborhood, they found that these men in masks were not federal agents—they were Denver police officers.
“They're wearing baseball caps. They're wearing different colored masks, like, nothing looks professional or even identifiable,” said Casey Childers, policy director for the Denver Justice Project, a nonprofit.
“When we compare those photos (of DPD) to photos that we've seen of ICE agents in our community and across the country, they look exactly the same.”
The incident drew an outpouring of criticism on social media when it was reposted by Denver Justice Project on April 21. DPJ’s post garnered more than 250 comments, mostly admonishing the police for hiding their faces.
Law enforcement in Denver are generally banned from wearing face coverings during operations under a recent city law, but there are some exceptions. Masks are allowed for officers who are undercover or working in SWAT and emergency response units, as well as for medical and personal safety reasons.
A DPD spokesperson confirmed that two of the 20 DPD officers present on the scene were “undercover narcotics investigators.”
One wore a blue tie-dyed neck gator and a baseball cap and the other a black balaclava; both wore jeans and tactical vests marked “police” on the front.
Chief faces questions
Chief Thomas took questions on April 24 at a meeting of the city’s Citizen Oversight Board.
Thomas said the two officers in question were exempt from the law because they were “undercover.” He added that they were supporting the execution of a “search warrant operation,” though he declined to say why these specific officers were needed on-scene.
But board members still had questions about the lasting impact of the operation.
“All of this conflict and all this chaos and all this confusion, how is it impeding your ability to do an effective job in keeping our community safe?” asked board member Alfredo Reyes, referencing reports that ongoing federal enforcement activity has eroded trust in local law enforcement and discouraged residents from calling the police for non-immigration issues.
Chief Thomas called the overlap in DPD and ICE tactics “unfortunate” and said communication to residents about the status of officers wearing face coverings would be handled by supervisors on scene.
He did not address wider changes in DPD’s approach to face coverings, and a DPD spokesperson later said that DPD would continue using face coverings when necessary, in compliance with the ordinance.
The face coverings themselves also drew some criticism. Board member Julia Richman asked Thomas why the anonymous officer didn’t have uniform face coverings, saying it was “strange” that the officers were wearing “random” coverings. Thomas confirmed that DPD does not supply officers with face coverings and has no plans to do so in the future.
Community trust was also on the mind of Councilmember Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez, who hosted a community forum to discuss police accountability last week.
“We are nowhere, nowhere near a place that our community has full trust of our law enforcement,” the at-large council member said. “There's been so much history and current events that have happened, and so we have a lot of work to do. This doesn't help.”
Casey, for one, wanted to see more widespread policy changes.
“No matter what (Chief Thomas) has done in his PR campaigns to help educate community, the fact that (DPD) is using the exact same tactics and they look almost exactly the same (as ICE), there is no way to differentiate,” Childers said, noting other cases where DPD has picked up protesters in unmarked vehicles and covered their faces during operations.
“Our biggest concern is that community trust is eroding,” Childers added.
In the end, four of the five people held at the Five Points intersection were released. DPD arrested 37-year-old Andrew Burkett for alleged possession of suspected Xanax, methamphetamine, and fentanyl.
