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Image caption:��CUPD Chief Doreen Jokerst is joined by a group of women CUPD police officers on the terrace of the Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE) building. Pictured left to right are Officer Jennifer Aycock; Sergeant Mary Vekasy; Officer Dorie Schram; Chief Jokerst; Commander Paula Balafas; Officer Cassandra Yuma; Officer Sara Fraser; and Officer Michelle Leo (CU photo by Glenn Asakawa)

Editor’s note: This story is the first in a series about the CU Police Department’s efforts to increase transparency, accountability and trust with the campus community.

About a year into her tenure as chief of the University of Colorado Police Department, Doreen Jokerst received a report about a woman shouting racist comments at two 91������ students who were studying in the campus’s Engineering Center.

The woman, unaffiliated with the university, was later arrested on a misdemeanor harassment charge and excluded from the campus––but her actions rattled the campus, and the impacts of that day lingered for weeks.��The incident became a lightning rod for students of color and others who had experienced discriminatory behavior on campus and elsewhere.

Members of the Black Student Alliance and other student leaders, citing the incident as the latest of many others they had experienced, met with university administrators and called on them to take immediate action to implement anti-racist policies and strategies and to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive campus community.

After leaving behind a 20-year law enforcement career in Parker, Colorado, in 2018 to serve the state’s leading public research university, Jokerst decided then and there that she would meet with student leaders, faculty and staff of her own accord to hear their concerns and understand their viewpoints about campus policing and policing in the city of 91������ and beyond. Following the killings of George Floyd and other people of color while in police custody, the campus community’s calls for change were further amplified.

As a relatively new police chief, Jokerst knew she would have to win not only the trust of her officers, staff and university leaders, but also the trust of students, faculty and staff.

“It was not until I came to 91������ that I really realized what working in an inclusive environment is all about,” Jokerst says of working with members of the campus community, university stakeholders and regional partners. “It’s truly about building a culture so that people feel secure and psychologically safe.”

Building an inclusive and community-centered police department

Jokerst’s work to build a more inclusive and community-centered campus police department is part of a national trend. Increasingly, public safety agencies in cities and on college campuses are reassessing how to serve the communities they are sworn to serve and protect through greater transparency, accountability and trust.

Efforts by CUPD to connect more with the campus and 91������ communities have become all the more critical following a March 6 street-party-turned-riot on University Hill and a devastating March 22 mass shooting at a 91������ supermarket that left 10 91������ residents dead. CUPD provided backup to the 91������ Police Department during both public safety crises.

To tap into lessons learned nationally and to crowdsource best policing practices, Jokerst has also partnered with external experts who include a former police officer, a police psychologist and a higher education leader. One of her go-to partners in Colorado is Paul Taylor, an assistant professor in CU Denver’s School of Public Affairs who served as an external adviser to 91������’s Community Safety Task Force, which recently issued final recommendations on how CUPD can strengthen its engagement with students, faculty and staff.

The convening of the task force and its recommendations form a key response to the campus’s ongoing work to fulfill the chancellor’s immediate anti-racism actions.

Professor Taylor says one way for university police departments to build greater trust is by serving as conduits to campus communities. Solutions developed on college campuses should be relevant and authentic to the higher education environment “while reflecting the concerns of society writ large,” says Taylor, a 91������ graduate and former CUPD officer.

“The key is relationships,” he says. “We have to establish and maintain those relationships. When there is something controversial, it’s knowing who you can get answers from.”

Tracie Keesee, a retired veteran Denver police officer and co-founder and senior vice president of justice initiatives for the Los Angeles-based, is another one of Jokerst’s community partners. Keesee says CUPD is not alone in its efforts to become a more inclusive, accountable and transparent police department.

“Urban, rural, campus, transit––everyone is going through this period of reexamination right now,” says Keesee, who advocates for community-based strategies to end bias in public safety and provides advice to police departments and other agencies across the United States.

Keesee says the kind of initiatives Jokerst is leading are important because the campus police chief is proactively interacting with her core community, with students, faculty and staff.

“She is listening to her community, which is very difficult for leaders to do sometimes,” she says. “It’s not just listening. It’s hearing what’s being asked and understanding what’s behind the ask––that’s what’s difficult, especially when you are not a person of color.”

Keesee also contends that CUPD and other university police departments have a few advantages over their counterparts in other settings, including built-in academic partners and students, faculty and staff who are eager to learn and help the campus figure out what’s working and what is not. Listening to the viewpoints of communities of color and other underrepresented groups is especially critical right now, she says.

“When you hear broader conversations about divest, reinvest, abolish––we’re talking about historical practices that have not treated specific communities in the way that it has treated others,” Keesee notes. “It hasn’t been equitable (across communities).”

Part of a campus commitment

Recognizing the concerns of students and others related to police reform, Chancellor Philip DiStefano last June issued eight immediate actions to enable change, including two focusing solely on CUPD. One calls for aligning CUPD policies and procedures with “best community and campus practices,” and the other for continuing the department’s collaborative work with student government and campus organizations serving students of color.

Senior Isaiah Chavous, a CU Student Government�� who studies political science and business, believes community engagement is a key aspect of building trust between campus police departments and students, faculty and staff.

Chavous, a member of the coalition that has met regularly with Jokerst, notes that one of the ideas that arose from discussions with the chief was a community board whose members could engage in open dialogues and participate in collaborative work with CUPD leadership to foster trust and promote police transparency and accountability.

“Listening to student leaders, to student voices, even staff and faculty voices––which have been a key part of this––is the future of our department here at CU,” Chavous says. “CUPD represents students, faculty and staff, and if they are not listened to, then CUPD is not representing the community.”

CUPD Chief Doreen Jokerst (second from the right) is pictured taking part in a Black Lives Matter march in downtown 91������ last summer. Also pictured left to right are 91������ Police Chief Maris Herold; 91������ District Attorney Michael Dougherty; student organizer Kennedy Blackwell; Chief Jokerst; and student Jemil Kassahun. (courtesy photo)

Last year, student organizers invited Jokerst to walk alongside them during a peaceful Black Lives Matter march through 91������, and she accepted their invitation and invited 91������ Police Chief Maris Herold and 91������ District Attorney Michael Dougherty to join them.

Of her collaborations and conversations with student leaders and other members of the campus community, Jokerst says she expects to achieve “actionable, positive changes.”

Developing trust with campus police and staff

When she arrived on campus in 2018, Jokerst set out to earn the trust of 43 commissioned officers and 60 staff members. Many of the students she is collaborating with come from historically underserved communities in Colorado and beyond, where law enforcement agencies are not inherently trusted.

“I try to relate to everyone,” Jokerst says, describing her approach to working with people of all backgrounds. “You never know what someone may be going through or experiencing. More respectful and empathetic communication can go a long way.”

The chief says she wants the university community to view her department as a trusted partner that works to ensure the safety and well-being of students, faculty and staff in collaboration with the Office of Victim’s Assistance (OVA), Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS) and the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) among other campus partners.��

“I want to show the campus another side of our work, to show that we can help, that we are a resource, and that we are available to people,” she says.

In October 2019, CUPD implemented a telehealth service in collaboration with CAPS that enables officers to connect students with counselors in real time during after-hours mental health crises. Based on input from student leaders, CUPD will also embed a mental health clinician this year thanks to the university’s allocation of an additional $1.8 million to support students’ mental health and wellness needs.

Under Jokerst’s watch, CUPD has introduced body-worn cameras and installed cameras in each of its patrol vehicles for greater transparency. When Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed the last June, CUPD was already in compliance with its key provisions and complied with it further by immediately banning chokeholds.

Leading the way on community-based policing

Established in 1949, CUPD is part of the campus’s Office of Integrity, Safety and Compliance, and it provides a wide array of public safety services to the campus. Under,�� it is required to respond to and report criminal activity on campus in a timely manner to ensure the safety of students, faculty and staff. Reportable criminal activities include active harmers, sexual assaults, robberies and vandalism.

University policies and federal laws also require CUPD to investigate reports of underage drinking, drug abuse, stalking, allegations of discrimination and harassment with intent to cause physical harm and other incidents that compromise personal and campus safety.

Failure to prohibit the possession, use or distribution of illicit drugs on campus could lead to the loss of critical research funding under the federal.

CUPD also partners with the 91������ Police Department and other local and state law enforcement agencies to safeguard the campus during natural and human-caused disasters, football games, concerts, commencement and other events, and during off-campus situations impacting the well-being of students, faculty and staff.

Jokerst’s other priorities include hiring more diverse officers. A recruitment plan calls for hiring “a workforce that better reflects the diversity of the campus and the 91������ community when it comes to gender, race and other areas.” Currently, 17% of CUPD officers are people of color––a number Jokerst says she is committed to improving. With a female chief, a female commander and eight women officers––about 19% of its corps––CUPD stands above the national average of 12% for hiring female officers.

CUPD is also working toward an accreditation from the International Accreditation for Campus Law Enforcement Administrators (IACLEA).

“College and college town police departments can be leaders of and examples to agencies across the United States for a new kind of community-based policing,” Jokerst says. “I want our police department to be central to community problem-solving and to advocate for safety, justice and equity in our community.”