Boulder city manager accuses NAACP of attempted blackmail in police chief dispute

A year-long dispute between Boulder officials and leaders of the local NAACP chapter over the city’s new police chief took a fresh turn Wednesday when the city manager accused members of the civil rights organization of attempting to use blackmail to prevent the chief’s permanent hiring.

A member of the Boulder County NAACP secretly recorded what was intended to be a confidential mediation session on July 25 between three members of the civil rights organization, Boulder police Chief Stephen Redfearn, police chief of staff Alastair McNiven and City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde, the city manager alleged in a news release Wednesday.

Boulder County NAACP president Annett James then threatened in an email to make that information public if the city hired Redfearn — the Boulder Police Department’s interim chief — as the permanent police chief, Rivera-Vandermyde alleged in the news release. She did not provide a copy of the Aug. 30 email, but quoted James as saying the organization wanted to expose Redfearn’s “obviously dangerous behavior.”

“‘The truth, it’s said, will set you free. In this instance, perhaps knowing the truth will be told will free you to make the obvious correct choice for the chief of Boulder police,'” James wrote, according to Rivera-Vandermyde.

James on Wednesday said her comments were never intended as a threat or as blackmail.

“Nothing about any of the interactions that we’ve had with the city is threatening in any way,” James said. “It’s about the NAACP looking for a police chief that is… someone who Black folks can live in Boulder and not feel terrorized by. And Redfearn has proven time and time again that he is extremely anti-Black. It is our mission at the NAACP to look for quality, integrity — people with integrity, people who are humane in policing. And this guy does not meet those criteria.”

The dispute over Redfearn, who joined the Boulder Police Department in 2021, began a year ago when local NAACP accused Redfearn of attempting to cover up the death of Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man who died after an Aurora police officer put him in a neck hold and a paramedic injected him with an overdose of the sedative ketamine in 2019.

Redfearn, who was a captain in the Aurora Police Department at the time of McClain’s death, has consistently denied the accusations.

Boulder promoted Redfearn to permanent police chief on Sept. 6, nine months after he was named interim chief in January. On Friday, the Boulder County NAACP issued a news release protesting Redfearn’s hiring that included four pages of dialogue it said was from the July 25 mediation meeting. The news release said the organization was “shocked and dismayed” to see Redfearn become permanent chief.

The NAACP’s Boulder criminal justice chair, Darren O’Connor, said Redfearn’s comments and demeanor during the nearly 3-hour mediation meeting showed he should not be Boulder’s police chief. He sent The Post a full recording of the mediation meeting.

“I would say it’s very troubling that the city manager is more upset (that) we recorded her than what her now-selected police chief had to say,” he said. “…She’s more worried about the fact we are sharing that information than what she heard that was disqualifying.”

Rivera-Vandermyde filed a complaint with the national NAACP over the Boulder members’ actions in early September, she said in the city’s news release. Alicia Mercedes, a national spokeswoman for the NAACP, did not return a request for comment Wednesday.

Shannon Carbone, a spokeswoman for the Boulder District Attorney’s Office, said Wednesday that there is no open criminal investigation into the city’s allegations. She called the claims “very concerning.”

“However, the conduct does not rise to the level of a criminal offense that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.

O’Connor said the NAACP members ensured they were not legally bound to keep the mediation confidential before they agreed to participate, and emphasized that the district attorney’s office found the allegations don’t rise to criminal blackmail.

James said members of the NAACP routinely record their meetings to guard against someone later mischaracterizing their interactions.

“We didn’t come into the meeting with any idea of, ‘We are trying to gotcha’ or anything,” she said. “That meeting was designed to have us fold and accept Redfearn. That was the outcome they were looking for. When they say it was not successful, it’s because we didn’t fold.”

The local NAACP pointed to testimony Redfearn gave during the 2023 trials for the first responders charged in McClain’s death as evidence of an attempted cover up.

Redfearn testified that he was the captain on duty that night, Aug. 24, 2019, and responded to the scene as McClain was being taken away in an ambulance, Colorado Public Radio reported. He testified that he changed the code for the call from a “suspicious person” call to an “assault on an officer” call, according to CPR.

McClain never assaulted police officers, though one officer claimed McClain tried to grab his gun during the fatal encounter.

Redfearn’s attorney, Stan Garnett, said Wednesday that Redfearn did nothing wrong when he changed the call category.

“There was no cover-up whatsoever,” Garnett said. “…These are the kinds of decisions that are made routinely within a police organization, particularly as an event is developing, and it didn’t reflect anything dishonest or misleading or inappropriate about what had occurred. It was simply fitting the incident into the logging procedures at the Aurora Police Department at the time.”

Rivera-Vandermyde on Wednesday defended her decision to hire Redfearn, who spent two decades at the Aurora Police Department. She and Redfearn declined to comment for this article.

“I stand by my decision to appoint him to this important leadership position in our community,” she wrote in the news release.

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