Leadville’s first black police chief sues over forced labor

According to a federal lawsuit recently filed against the city, Leadville’s first Black police chief claims he was forced out of his job by racist officers and a city manager who conspired to push him out of the predominantly white police department.

Former Police Chief Hal Edwards claims his tenure as head of the small department was cut short last year when officials filed complaints about his leadership style with Leadville City Manager Laurie Simonson, who used the grumbling to keep Edwards running after a third term to force him out of his job. An internal party investigation found that most of the complaints were unfounded or exaggerated.

“I believe it was racist, and I definitely believe I was treated more harshly than my predecessors in this position,” Edwards said in an interview Monday.

Edwards, who was named Lake County commissioner last month, blamed Simonson for the ouster, saying the city manager failed to support him as chief and actively undermined his efforts to lead the department. The lawsuit does not detail incidents of overtly racist behavior, but rather focuses on officers’ lack of trust in Edwards, which he attributed to racism.

“I was the first black police chief in a city that was predominantly white, and I think there’s a long history of black people having authority over groups of white employees where our judgment and our competence are questioned and that I think so too.” “That was the case for me,” said Edwards.

Simonson did not respond to requests for comment Monday. The lawsuit, filed last week in U.S. District Court in Denver, names the city of Leadville as the sole defendant.

Edwards began working as Leadville’s chief in August 2021. Within months, officials filed complaints about his leadership style, including that he was rude and didn’t listen to employees. Then, in October 2022, four white police officers and two Latino employees filed a class action lawsuit against Edwards with Simonson, who hired an outside investigator to investigate the wide-ranging allegations.

The investigator found that most of the complaints against the chief were unfounded or exaggerated, although some were substantiated, including allegations that Edwards used profanity and appointed a field training officer who was not fully trained, according to a three-page summary of the investigation provided to The Denver Post by Edwards’ attorneys.

“Overall, the objective evidence and witness accounts of Edwards’ conduct do not support allegations that Edwards engaged in unprofessional conduct, unprofessional communication, discrimination or retaliation,” the summary says.

The outside investigation left open the possibility that the officers’ riot was racially motivated and found that the action could also have been politically motivated, as Edwards was running for Lake County sheriff at the time and at least two of those suing were Officials supported other candidates.

“While the evidence does not clearly indicate that the complaint is racially motivated, the optics of a predominantly white group of officers complaining about their Black supervisor are suspicious,” the summary says.