After the 2020 murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police, Colorado lawmakers passed a bill requiring the state’s Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) board to publish a public database containing some basic disciplinary information about police officers.

But Colorado still refuses to release a more extensive database of all law enforcement officers whom the state has certified to arrest people and carry a gun, and where they have worked.

The refusal to release this information makes Colorado one of just 15 states that keep this type of police officer data secret, according to a nationwide reporting project, preventing the press and public from adequately monitoring the state’s oversight of wandering or second-chance officers.

In other states where such databases are disclosed, reporters and researchers have shown significant gaps in state oversight systems that have allowed officers with troubled pasts to be shuffled to school district departments and passed around tiny suburban departments. Departments have failed to notify criminal defendants about officers’ histories of misconduct, and officers have continued to work in law enforcement even after criminal convictions. In Florida, researchers showed that wandering officers are not only more likely to be fired at their new departments, but also rack up even more citizen complaints.

“I don’t understand why it’s something that our state would want to keep from people,” said University of Colorado law professor Ann...

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