Coming Together to End Human Trafficking

January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and we were pleased to start the year by announcing a $1.42 million federal dollar grant that we will share with the Asian Pacific Development Center (APDC). The demonstrated success of our and the Denver Police Department’s Human Trafficking Units was demonstrated by honored with this renewed grant. Our office will use the money to enhance the work of the unit and the work of the Denver Anti-Trafficking Alliance (DATA) in identifying victims of human trafficking as well as along with hiring a new human trafficking investigator. The APDC will use its funding to provide more culturally-sensitive, and trauma-informed care for trafficking survivors.

Grand Jury Indictment

After hearing testimony from 17 witnesses and reviewing 140 exhibits, a grand jury indicted Denver Police Department Officer Brandon Ramos for an officer-involved shooting incident that occurred in LoDo on July 17, 2022. As a result, our office has opened a criminal case against Officer Ramos. Two other officers who fired their guns that night will not face criminal charges as both the grand jury and DA McCann concluded those officers’ actions were legally justified. The public’s interest in this particular shooting incident is understandably high. For the community to trust in the outcome from this incident, DA McCann believed it was important that independent members of the community review the facts, evidence and law regarding whether these officers should be criminally charged.

Promoting More Effective, Just and Transparent Decision Making

In the December issue of the DA Dispatch, we told you about the launch of our new dashboard that allows anyone to explore our data and learn about things like case referrals, case outcomes, and performance indicators. Since the launch of our dashboard, we’ve added weekly data insights that examine the cases we are filing by the type of crime (i.e. weapons, property, drugs, sex assaults). On February 15^th as a member of the Colorado Prosecutorial Dashboards Project, we announced a series of new reports that provide an even deeper understanding of racial and ethnic differences in the prosecution process. The new reports came from research that was were undertaken to understand whether race/ethnicity impacts how a case is resolved. We were pleased that the results of the new report mirror the findings from our two prior studies on race and justice. We constantly monitor our data with the goal of ensuring equity.

Explore our data and read the reports. 

DA McCann in the Classroom

Professor Amin Asfari recently invited DA McCann to his classroom of criminology students at Regis University to give an overview of our office. She talked about our office mission, our role in the criminal justice system, and outlined our office structure. The students heard about the number of criminal cases we handle, the work of our attorneys and staff in prosecuting a wide variety of cases, our specialty units, including juvenile and human trafficking and learned about our crime reduction strategies, such as diversion and restorative justice. They even got a glimpse of Bodhi, our facility dog – see more on Bodhi below.

Our Office Values Meaningful Work

One of our office values is ‘meaningful work’, which we define as work that is driven by justice, that helps the community, while incorporating our diverse perspectives. We are proud that Deputy DA Bilal Aziz upholds these values through his work as the head of our Bias-Motivated Crime Team. After the recent Club Q shooting tragedy in Colorado Springs, news outlets relied on his expertise to explain the issues surrounding charging bias-motivated crimes. Bilal regularly consults with the Denver Police Department when bias motivation – or a hate crime - appears to be behind property damage, threats of violence or assault. 

We were pleased to begin 2023 by introducing Denver to Bodhi, a two-year-old Golden Retriever/Labrador Retriever mix. Bodhi recently joined the office to provide emotional support to victims, witnesses and their family members. Bodhi is a highly-trained facility dog and is trustworthy in professional environments. He can perform more than 40 commands and aids in the investigation of crimes, in trial preparation and with courtroom testimony. Bodhi’s comforting presence helps people, and particularly children, survive their trauma and participate more openly and fully in the criminal justice process. As the nature of our work is often traumatic, Bodhi supports our employees’ well-being with every tail wag, game of fetch and belly rub.

We are grateful to Victim Advocate Shannon McFate who volunteered to be Bodhi’s handler, which required her to spend two weeks out of state to train with him. She provides Bodhi with day-to-day care and continues his on-the-job training.

CBS4: Bodhi, newest member of Denver DA's Office helps comfort crime victims