A Wyoming sheriff is trying to recruit deputies by posting a billboard in Denver, Colorado.
“Work in Wyoming where breaking the law is STILL ILLEGAL & cops are still funded,” reads a billboard the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office placed near downtown Denver.
Laramie County Sheriff Brian Kozak said the billboard touts the whole state of Wyoming as a law-and-order state, and that people in the Cowboy State value law enforcement. He figures Denver cops aren’t feeling much of that after the city recently slashed its police department by $8 million.
“We do enforce the rules and the law, and I want people to know about Wyoming — that that’s our culture here,” Kozak told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. “And statewide, communities do support law enforcement. There’s no doubt about that.”
Though it showcases Wyoming in general, the billboard lists the web address for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office in the hopes of attracting officers there first, said Kozak. He said the department has been targeting digital advertising into the Denver area as well.
Kozak’s department and Wyoming’s laws and culture attracted a Vail-area officer to Cheyenne last year.
Laramie County Chief Deputy Aaron Veldheer told Cowboy State Daily he chose Wyoming over his former post in Eagle County, Colorado, “because crime is illegal here.”
“And I worked for a great agency in Colorado. I’ve got no complaints about them,” said Veldheer. “Just the General Assembly (Colorado Legislature) makes it so the cops are the bad guys.”
‘Frustrations’
Kozak listed as a possible “frustration” for Colorado cops the city of Denver’s decision last month to cut its law enforcement budget by $8.4 million to address the city’s migrant crisis.
Denver is a sanctuary city, and so has been one destination for Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s program that buses immigrants out of his inundated Southern border state.
Kozak cited another frustration: Denver city leaders approved a policy May 1 barring officers from pulling drivers over for low-level traffic infractions after Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas called the stops time-consuming and not effective for crime reduction.
Kozak countered, noting that a patrol officer caught Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 1995 after pulling over a yellow Mercury for not having a registration tag. The sheriff said many Wyoming drug and DUI busts follow traffic stops for lesser infractions.
And in the height of 2020 police reform protests, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a law abolishing qualified immunity, which is a legal provision protecting police officers from being sued in their individual capacities if they did not knowingly violate a plaintiff’s established rights.
Kozak said his department’s recruiting pamphlets note that Wyoming still has qualified immunity.
Veldheer said the abolition of qualified immunity wasn’t as huge of a concern for him as some of the other police reforms, noting that Colorado law has other protections for officers doing their jobs in good faith.
“If you did everything right you should still be covered, but it’s a lot higher bar to achieve,” said Veldheer, adding that he’s speaking on his own behalf, not for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Department officially. “And there are times, I personally think, sometimes cops should be held accountable for things – which is going to be unpopular (as a viewpoint).”
He said courts should look at each case carefully to find justice in the grey areas.
But At What Cost?
Kozak said the Denver billboard near the intersection of South Pecos Street on West Alameda Avenue cost $2,500 for one month, and that the department won’t renew it after the month is over. He said these billboards typically would cost about $8,000 per month, but the person who sold him the deal also was unhappy Denver cut its police budget and gave him a discount.
Billboard company Lamar’s Denver-based office did not immediately return a call for comment.
Laramie County allocated a $40,000 recruiting budget to its sheriff’s office in the most recent fiscal year, said Kozak, who said the efforts can cut, rather than exacerbate, costs.
“That’s less than half of what the salary is for one employee, versus my overtime budget last year was $1.3 million,” said Kozak. “So, we’ve got to get aggressive on our recruiting efforts to save money and hire people, and eliminate that overtime budget.”
Hiring Spree
Kozak said the department hired 72 people last year in an “unheard-of” hiring spree, but it still has eight patrol positions and 17 detention positions to fill. The department’s ideal employee capacity is 260, he said.
Sheridan Police Chief Travis Koltiska said he admires Kozak’s billboard.
“I love it. It’s awesome,” Koltiska told Cowboy State Daily, adding that his department is short by five officer positions, two full-time and one part-time dispatch position.
And the goal isn’t just to get warm bodies into uniforms, he said. The hope is to get a high enough number of applications from which to choose exceptional candidates.
Both Koltiska and Kozak said it’s fair to say “most” Wyoming law-enforcement agencies are short-staffed.
Koltiska said a periodical dispatch by the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation listing available positions in short lines with hyperlinks to each agency is currently five pages long.
“We already have enough struggles in recruiting and retaining in this profession,” said Koltiska, in critique of Colorado’s law-enforcement reform laws. “If we can attract quality candidates to Wyoming to bolster law enforcement, I think it’s a win.”
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
