Paul Pazen is frustrated.

The former Denver police chief not only feels like this is an infuriating movie he has seen before, but he predicted it. And he warned people about it. And nobody listened.

“Where is the accountability for bad decisions and bad policy?” he asked as he spoke with The Denver Gazette three days after police said a 17-year-old student shot two school administrators during a pat-down at East High School. The student was later found dead. Authorities believe he committed suicide.

“I said it then, I said it since then and I’ll say it again: It was a mistake to take them out in the first place,” he said.

Pazen was referring to the 2020 decision by Denver Public Schools to end all school resource officer contracts with the Denver Police Department amid nationwide protests following the death of George Floyd after he was handcuffed and pinned to the ground by police officers in Minneapolis. One of the officers was convicted of murder, while three others received prison sentences.

Critics view police presence at schools

as problematic, arguing students of color frequently report having a negative experience with law enforcement — one of the rationales for ending SRO contracts that DPS offered. SRO supporters counter that they serve as a deterrent to violence and, most importantly, they can immediately respond in case of a crisis.

DPS has not had SROs — sworn peace officers who work in a school setting — since June 2021.

That will soon change. In the wake of the shooting of two East High School administrators Wednesday, the board reversed course Thursday and decided to place armed police officers on high school campuses for the remainder of the school year.

“My frustration is I felt like one of the only voices back in the summer of 2020, saying, ‘Please don’t take the officers out of schools,’ that kids are going to be harmed,” he said. “It’s predictable, it’s preventable, and I think what has occurred certainly was predictable and certainly should have been preventable.”

He added: “This is what happens when we make emotional decisions and not logical decisions.”

Pazen argued that elected officials have faced no consequences for making decisions that — in his mind — effectively put the lives of students and staffers at risk.

In contrast, he said, police officers today face all kinds of accountability requirements. Notably, Pazen cited the passage of Senate Bill 20-217, which included major changes to policing. One provision allows the filing of lawsuits against police officers who violate a person’s rights under the state constitution or who fail to intervene to stop a violation. Qualified immunity, which shields officers in federal lawsuits from liability, does not apply under SB 217.

“Here’s the analogy,” Pazen said, referring to the DPS decision in 2020. “Why can’t the parents sue the people that made this decision civilly?”

One reason for kicking out the SROs, the DPS board said that year, is the belief that “close proximity of law enforcement to students on campuses directly contributes to the school-to-prison pipeline.”

The board referred to studies that say Black and brown students arrested for minor school infractions are “more likely to end up in the adult criminal system, entrenching the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Through its decision, the board said, “we have taken an important step in dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline.”

Auon’tai Anderson, who co-sponsored the SRO termination resolution with now-state Rep. Jennifer Bacon, then argued that students shouldn’t be greeted by law enforcement officers but by nurses, school counselors and mental health support workers, and that the $750,000 contract with DPD should be redirected to these efforts.

The resolution approved by DPS said multiple resources and pathways exist to ensure school safety other than reliance on law enforcement officers and, by passing the resolution, the board would “fulfill its responsibility for undoing the systemic racism that Black children and children of color face.”

Pazen, who retired from the Denver police force Oct. 15 after 27 years with the department, said at the time of the board’s decision to kick out SROs, 17 of the 18 officers assigned to DPS schools were people of color.

The former police chief said the 2020 decision veered from common sense. The logical approach, he said, is to view the “positive interaction” between police officers and young people as a “good thing.”

SROs, he added, serve to reduce or prevent violence.

Pazen said it was painful for him to hear news of the East High School shooting, particularly because he, too, is a product of DPS — he graduated from North High School, his brother from East High School and his parents went to West High School.

“I’m just hurt by the fact that this was something that was predictable and preventable,” he said.

“At some point, I think the parents of DPS students need to say, ‘Wait a minute, we need to hold the school board accountable for bad policy decisions,’ ” he said.

The board’s decision on Thursday to reverse course was unanimous.

Anderson said he plans to offer insights into that decision in a press briefing on Monday.