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By Root 1892 0

Amendment rights. As disappointment and frustration pervaded, detectives would remark to one another, “If it reaches a particular point, I’m walking away.” But we would always tolerate it “just one more time.” Last year, when we discovered hidden cameras inside the Ramsey house, only to realize the detectives had been unwittingly videotaped, this should have rocked the police department off its foundation. Instead, we allowed that, too, to pass without challenge. The detectives’ enthusiasm became simply resigned frustration, acquiescing to that which should never have been tolerated. In the media blitz, the pressure of the whole world watching, important decisions seemed to be premised on “how it would play” publicly. Among at least a few of the detectives, “there’s something wrong here” became a catch phrase. I witnessed others having to make decisions which impacted their lives and careers, watched the soul searching that occurred as the ultimate questions were pondered. As it goes, “evils that befall the world are not nearly so often caused by bad men, as they are by good men who are silent when an opinion must be voiced.” Although several good men in the police department shouted loudly behind closed doors, the organization stood deafeningly silent at what continued to occur unchallenged.

Last Spring, you, too, seemed at a loss. I was taken aback when I was reminded of what happened to Commander Eller when he stuck his neck out. When reminded how politically powerful the DA was. When reminded of the hundreds of other cases the department had to file with this district attorney’s office, and this was but one case. And finally, when I was asked, “what do you want done? The system burned down?”, it struck me dumb. But when you conceded that there were those inside the DA’s office we had to simply accept as “defense witnesses,” and when we were reduced to simply recording our objections for “documentation purposes”—I knew I was not going to participate in this much longer.

I believe the district attorney’s office is thoroughly compromised. When we were told by one person in the district attorney’s office, months before we had even completed our investigation, that this case “is not prosecutable,” we shook our heads in disbelief. A lot could have been forgiven, and lesser transgressions ignored, for the right things done. Instead, those in the district attorney’s office encouraged us to allow them to “work their magic” (which I never fully understood. Did that “magic” include sharing our case file information with the defense attorneys, dragging feet in evidence collection, or believing that two decades of used-car-dealing-style-plea-bargaining was somehow going to solve this case?) Right and wrong is just that. Some of these issues were not shades of gray. Decisions should have been made as such. Whether a suspect’s a penniless indigent with a public defender, or otherwise.

As contrasted by my experiences in Georgia, for example, where my warrant affidavits were met with a sense of support and an obligation to the victim. Having worked with able prosecutors in other jurisdictions, having worked cases where justice was aggressively sought, I have familiarity with these prosecution professionals who hold a strong sense of justice. And then, from Georgia, the Great Lakes, the East Coast, the South, I would return to Boulder, to again be thoroughly demoralized.

We delayed and ignored, for far too long, that which was “right” in deference of maintaining this dysfunctional relationship with the district attorney’s office. This wasn’t a runaway train that couldn’t be stopped. Some of us bit our tongues as the public was told of this “renewed cooperation” between the police department and the district attorney’s office—this at the very time the detectives and those in the district attorney’s office weren’t even on speaking terms, the same time you had to act as a liaison between the two agencies because the detectives couldn’t tolerate it. I was quite frankly surprised, as you remarked on this camaraderie, that there