This has been a challenging and painful week.

We have a long history in Colorado and across the U.S. of violence directed at people of color, and while George Floyd's death is far from the first example of police brutality to be captured on camera, there was something about this particular incident, at this particular moment, that caught broad public attention in a way we hadn't seen before.

We are fortunate in our town to have a police chief and police department that I believe genuinely strive to treat everyone fairly, and as far as I've known over the years they've lived up to that aspiration. Chief Kilpatrick's powerful letter to the community several days ago underscores the department's and the chief's own commitment to treating people with respect and dignity. I've included it below in case you haven't seen it. It is heartfelt and moving, and I deeply appreciate Chief Kilpatrick writing it.

But biases like these are often unintended or inadvertently buried in institutional practices, and even with the best of intentions they can be immensely impactful. An important next step would be to make sure we have credible systems in place for identifying and resolving the implicit biases, overt prejudices, and institutional inequities that can have such devastating impacts on people's lives even while remaining out of view. I don't know what all of the best practices are, but they almost certainly involve tracking and monitoring key types of data, transparently sharing these data with the community, and making sure we have the mechanisms in place to directly address issues if and when they surface.

I will also say that my experiences with the Golden Police Department have been uniformly positive even under trying circumstances. It is difficult to reconcile the professionalism of the police officers I know, particularly here in Golden, with the inexcusable violence that we have seen some law enforcement officers around the country inflict on people and communities of color. I know how hard our officers work, as Chief Kilpatrick says, to build trust in the community, and law enforcement is a difficult and dangerous job even in a relatively safe community like Golden. At the same time, I've spent enough time in communities brutalized by police violence to understand at least something of their deep anger and distrust. Even if the problems were limited to a small number of cops in a few places, the impacts can be profound and wide-reaching.

And while I'm focusing on the police department for the obvious reason that law enforcement agencies around the U.S. have been regularly implicated in extrajudicial killings and brutality directed at people of color, I hope we will ask these questions more widely, looking at the rest of our city government and our community, asking tougher questions about the biases we are bringing to bear in our day-to-day lives and the biases that might be inadvertently embedded in our organizations and institutions.

Dispiritingly, I still overhear disparaging racially tinged comments in Golden with uncomfortable frequency. Some of our residents experience overt harassment - even today - because of their religion or the color of their skin. And we shouldn't settle for assuming that we are doing fine because we aren't hearing any complaints. Often the last thing a victim of discrimination wants to do is complain since so frequently the only outcome is even worse consequences for the victim. If we are genuinely committed to a community that welcomes everyone and treats everyone with dignity and respect, we all need to examine our own unconscious biases.

I love Golden and I'm proud to be part of it, while I also believe we can do better. Every community is tied to its history, and Golden's has some ugly chapters that have almost certainly helped shape our challenges today. It's not random that our community is so overwhelmingly white, for instance, even if we as its current residents don't intend for that. We know this is at least partly the result of a history that is intertwined with the history of Colorado's white supremacy and anti-immigrant movements, and we know it is also the result of decades of policies both overt and informal that were practiced in cities across the country to deny fair employment, housing, and educational opportunities to people of color.

To state the obvious, individual, institutional, and cultural biases based on skin color have devastating impacts on people of color. And simply condemning racism, while important, isn't enough. I believe the conversations happening in Golden right now, if we are willing to continue them and follow through with what actions we can take, could be a powerful start to taking these challenges more seriously and an important step toward how we as a community and a nation come to terms with our history and our present.

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Chief Kilpatrick's Letter to the Community

To our Golden Community,

Over the course of the last several days I have been asked by many, as the City of Golden Police Chief, my thoughts on the death of Mr. George Floyd while being taken into custody by officers of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Honestly, it feels like my heart has been torn to pieces and is broken. Broken for the senseless and unexplainable loss of Mr. Floyd's life, broken for the unimaginable pain and suffering that Mr. Floyd's family and friends will endure for the rest of their lives, broken for the terrible divide that is ripping apart the fabric of our nation, broken due to the continuing and ongoing violence that is occurring throughout the country and broken for the loss of faith in our police officers who work tirelessly to build trust among you, the public we serve.

I have been in policing for a very long time and the circumstances surrounding the death of Mr. Floyd are deeply disturbing to me. There is no reasonable or rational explanation for what occurred.

Let me be clear. What I saw in the video of the last minutes of Mr. Floyd's life was repulsive, appalling and unconscionable.

It goes against everything I believe in; the sanctity of life, the dignity of the human spirit, and our responsibility as humans, but most particularly as police officers, to treat all people with respect.

I believe that each of us is responsible and accountable for our actions as well as for our failure to act. Therefore, it is my belief that those officers must be held to account in the criminal justice system for their behaviors. Behaviors which go against all that we, as police officers, stand for.

I share in the grief that is being experienced as a result of Mr. Floyd's death. And I know there is a path forward. It continues with our willingness to listen, learn, dialog and connect with those we serve.

All organizations have a culture that shapes the behaviors of its members and its members shape the culture of the organization. This department of ours strives every day to create a culture of inclusiveness, community and respect.

I take great pride in being your police chief and leading the women and men of the Golden Police Department. We have amazing individuals working here. They are highly competent, committed, motivated and dedicated people who endeavor to give their best to you, our Golden community, every day. They believe in our core values of teamwork, integrity, excellence, personal responsibility and professionalism. And they believe in the right of the people to peacefully protest.

Their jobs are not easy and yet they seek, always, to try and do the right thing for the right reason. They have good hearts and good minds. No, we are not perfect, but I will tell you that our folks are as good as you will ever find anywhere. I know that through all that we are facing they will continue to provide high quality and honorable service to all they encounter.

I hope that you are as proud of them and the work they do as I am.

Respectfully,

Bill Kilpatrick, Chief of Police