A group of community leaders will launch a toll-free racial profiling and police discrimination hotline today that it hopes will result in “greater accountability” for Colorado police departments.

The Colorado Progressive Coalition is calling it the Colorado Racial Profiling and Police Discrimination Hotline. By calling 303-654-4109 in the Denver metro area, and 1-866-329-0908 statewide, people can file their complaints with a representative. If the caller requires legal assistance, the organization will then put the caller in touch with a lawyer and help them to file a formal complaint with the department.

“We’ve been going back to the communities and asking people how they feel about police presence in their neighborhoods and people have been saying that the police have been targeting them. There’s been a lot of stories of racial profiling and discrimination and we want to get more police accountability for these communities,” said Cheyenne Hughes with the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

The communities that have been probed by the organization are predominantly neighborhoods of color, including Cole, Whittier, northern Park Hill and the Five Points area.

“When one group of people is being put over at a higher rate or are being discriminated against or racially profiled, we think that’s a concern,” said Hughes. “Without police oversight or accountability, we see this as a problem that will keep growing.”

Hughes was a victim himself

Hughes became active with racial profiling and police discrimination programs after he said he was the victim of several instances of racial profiling, especially in the Five Points neighborhood. He has been pulled over for traffic offenses 18 times, but has only received four actual tickets, he said. On two separate occasions, the officers decided to let him off with a warning.

The community activist has been featured on “Dateline NBC” for his stories of racial profiling. He is hoping that the hotline will result in a detailed report of such instances so that the organization can call out specific officers or departments for discriminatory instances.

It may even result in state legislation that would require police officers to provide their full identification and also track the ethnicity of people who they pull over. Similar legislation that was approved in 2001 sunsetted in 2006, said Hughes.

But local law enforcement agencies say their departments already do what is needed to hold police officers accountable for actions like racial profiling. Det. Sharon Hahn with the Denver Police Department said in addition to internal complaints, the city has an independent monitor who watches over citizen complaints.

Other options

“We welcome any type of complaint and we thoroughly investigate all of them,” she said. “If anyone has any type of complaint, I would just encourage them to call the internal affairs unit or the Office of the Independent Monitor … this is nothing new for us.”

Aurora police spokeswoman Shannon Lucy echoed similar thoughts.

“People are welcome to pursue anything they want to but we do already have on-hand two different ways that people can complain directly to the department if they feel they’ve been profiled or discriminated against, or mistreated in any way,” she said. “We would just prefer that they at least attempt that first so we can get the problem resolved in a positive way to everyone’s satisfaction prior to stepping into an attorney’s office and lawsuits.”

Both departments have academy and in-service courses that discuss sensitivity issues on the topic of racial profiling and overall police discrimination.

Hughes, however, said the hotline is necessary to quickly force accountability where each department’s internal affairs and independent monitor might fail.

“It’s kind of like voting,” he said. “It takes a lot of people to express concern with certain police officers before we can actually hold the officers accountable.”