MONTE VISTA— Colorado State Senator Larry Crowder made a short surprise visit to Coffee With a Cop on the morning of Saturday, April 13. The gathering was held during breakfast hours at Mountain View Restaurant.
Crowder stated he had heard there was a coffee meeting with local law enforcement and decided to stop by to greet everyone for a moment. He shared that the fallen officers of Colorado were recently memorialized at the state capitol and thanked police chief John Rosecrans and the officers present for their service. “We cannot tell you how much we respect your profession. You’re the first line of defense. You guys are usually running towards danger, while most of us are running away from that. So I just honor your bravery and what you do,” said Crowder.
The conversation continued with members of the public, Rosecrans and present officers for a few hours on Saturday morning. The casual conversation had a main topic of discussing the red flag gun bill that was recently signed into law by Governor Jared Polis. This will allow courts to order that some individuals not be allowed to purchase deadly weapons due to severe mental illness or severe dangerous behavior. Some sheriff’s throughout Colorado have stated they will not follow the new law because they believe it to be constitutional.
Rosecrans weighed in on the controversy and answered some questions and concerns from the audience. He said the issue is complicated because it is a state law, and some were trying to interpret it federally. He gave examples of case precedents in which some people challenged state laws, but the federal government didn’t intervene because it was not a federal law. He said laws could certainly be determined unconstitutional, but that didn’t necessarily mean state or county officials were not obligated to abide by their state’s enacted laws. The oaths of office taken by state and county officials includes that they will follow the constitution and laws of the state of Colorado.
He gave the example of Colorado’s marijuana law, which almost about half the states of the United States have now legalized. Even so, marijuana is still illegal federally. This makes it a complicated process at times through the criminal justice system. This has brought a reciprocal situation in which the state of Colorado has fought off individuals seeking to force police departments to return confiscated marijuana due it being legal within the state. Since it is still illegal federally police departments do not have to do so, and the state of Colorado has upheld this and stated they would not force departments to become “dealers” in a sense. This example shows the complication when state and federal laws are in contradiction with each other, as is perhaps the case with the red flag law.
Members of the audience questioned that since the red flag gun bill is now the law of Colorado, if county sheriffs are under liability if a bad situation happens that can be traced back around to a sheriff refusing to enforce it. Rosecrans said he is unsure of the specifics of that angle, but thought it certainly does open up the possibility.