Off-duty Colorado police chief’s road-rage-like confrontations prompted 911 calls, investigation finds

The police chief for the Colorado Mental Wellbeing Hospital in Pueblo used road-rage-like tactics to confront speeding drivers while he was off-duty outside of his jurisdiction and in an unmarked state bus prompting drivers to call at least three times last year an internal examination located Chief Richard McMorran was reinstated to his position Aug with a pay cut after a -month examination into his actions He was on paid administrative leave during that assessment which included a review by the Colorado Bureau of Examination and a referral to prosecutors for anticipated criminal charges In an email Thursday th Judicial District Attorney Kala Beauvais declared her office is still considering whether criminal charges are warranted We are nearing a decision she stated McMorran did not return a request for comment Thursday On at least six occasions between January and September McMorran confronted drivers on Interstate who he considered were speeding the probe revealed The chief tailgated raced and pulled up beside drivers He yelled gestured swerved into the other drivers lanes refused to let them pass and paced them to gauge their speed investigators ascertained He was in the unmarked carriage outside of hospital grounds off-duty and sometimes wearing plain clothes during the confrontations the inspection identified It was not at once clear Thursday whether the unmarked automobile was equipped with police lights and sirens Two of the incidents in January and September ended in actual traffic stops the internal research ascertained You had multiple interactions with members of the community that caused them to fear for their safety and call These interactions were repeatedly inappropriate unprofessional demonstrated poor judgment and exhibited a lack of understanding about the impact you have on members of the general when behaving this way Chris Frenz deputy director of operations and legal affairs at the Office of Civil and Forensic Mental Fitness the agency that operates the state s mental strength hospitals wrote in an Aug disciplinary letter Drivers called during three of the confrontations At least one of the drivers was concerned that the chief had ulterior motives other than traffic enforcement Frenz wrote The analysis considered whether the chief was specifically targeting women in the confrontations spokeswoman Stephanie Fredrickson established She announced the targeted drivers were both men and women but declined to give an exact breakdown of their genders to protect their privacy Frenz concluded that the chief was not specifically stopping women I do not believe you were targeting name redacted or anyone specifically as you admitted that it was common practice for you to identify people speeding and use various techniques to get them to slow down he wrote However your practices very clearly gave an initial appearance of a few type of targeting or harassing behavior from the viewpoint of any specific person subject to this behavior During the internal study McMorran denied swerving or tailgating but generally acknowledged the incidents and notified internal investigators that he feels he has an obligation to intervene when people are driving too fast He revealed he pulled alongside drivers to monitor their speeds because his wagon is not equipped with radar and that the perceived yelling and gesturing was his way of telling the drivers to slow down You were shocked that anyone thought you were trying to run off the road You ve never done anything like that before Frenz wrote in the letter summarizing the chief s positions during the research If you had known so several people had been calling in you would have approached things differently The chief noted during the internal examination that he is allowed to make traffic stops He is a POST-certified police officer state records show Frenz wrote in his letter that current protocol gives the chief the authority to conduct traffic stops Frenz wrote that he was reducing the chief s salary by a month not because he made traffic stops but because of the way he did so You should have known that pacing people in an unmarked bicycle with no uniform without pulling them over would cause confusion and fear Frenz wrote Moreover your repeated conduct on the freeway reflected poorly on the department Related Articles Police chief at Colorado s mental soundness hospital still on paid leave months later Police chief for Colorado s mental wellness hospital under CBI inquiry removed from job In addition to the pay cut McMorran for the next year is prohibited from driving his state motorcycle outside of the hospital s sprawling -acre campus is prohibited from conducting traffic stops unless there is an immediate medical or safety concern and cannot drive his state automobile to his home or use it for personal reasons according to the letter The state mental robustness hospital s small police department handles criminal matters at the -bed campus in Pueblo The department includes a handful of certified police officers as well as a number of precaution guards McMorran was appointed chief in when his predecessor was abruptly removed from his position placed on administrative leave and escorted from the premises The reason for the previous chief s departure was not clear but he did not return from leave Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day