May 06, 2007 05:02 PM UTC

Denver DA Making Smart Political Moves

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the Denver Post reported this week, Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey is making public the internal investigations of police shooting incidents that have occured in recent years:

Denver’s district attorney has decided to allow the public to view files on recent shootings by police, departing from an agreement to keep them sealed until administrative reviews of those cases are completed by the city’s manager of safety.

District Attorney Mitch Morrissey announced this week that he won’t wait for Manager of Safety Al LaCabe, who oversees the Police Department, to complete detailed reports on several officer-involved shootings in 2005 and 2006.

LaCabe has said he is trying to deal with the backlog of unfinished reports while overhauling the review system and has shifted personnel to do it.

“We respect the fact that Al is trying to resolve it,” said Chuck Lepley, first assistant district attorney, “but it’s in the best interest of the community to get these things open.”

Police/citizen relations in Denver have been a serious issue for many years, much more so than any blizzard. Morrissey’s actions should improve relations with the ACLU and other activist groups that have rewarded the city’s handling of police brutality claims with lots of bad press.

Morrissey has been getting a lot of positive attention in the press lately, both locally and nationally–he was recently featured on CBS’ 60 Minutes in a story on DNA evidence and privacy issues. And although he wasn’t personally running for office in last week’s citywide election, a measure to increase his office’s term limit from two four year terms to three (the same as other Denver elected officials) passed by a lopsided majority–76%.

This all speaks well of Morrissey’s prospects for higher office, even though he can stay on as Denver DA until 2016 now if he chooses. As everyone knows, the last DA went on to do pretty well.