DENVER – The Colorado House passed four police reform bills Thursday with broad bipartisan support, suggesting that similar policies floated last year and shot down by Republicans in the Senate might become law in 2016.

“A lot of the anxiety around these issues – police mistrust, the killings that have happened across the country, some of our own issues here like the Marvin Booker case – some of that has subsided,” said Rep. Angela Williams, D-Denver, a longtime advocate for improved relations between police and disadvantaged communities. “It allowed, particularly our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, to really focus on what’s good policy for the people of Colorado and I think that has helped us a lot this year and the ability to work together on a very sensitive subject.”

Marvin Booker died in Denver’s downtown jail in 2010 after being shocked with a Taser and put in a chokehold.

Among the bills passed Thursday was House Bill 1264 that bans chokeholds that cut off the supply of oxygen.

Sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jovan Melton, D-Aurora, said a similar bill was introduced in 1980 by then-Rep. Wilma Webb, the wife of former Denver Mayor Wellington Webb.

“If they had passed this bill back then, there’s no doubt Marvin Booker may still be alive,” Melton said.

House Bill 1264 passed 48-16.

In 2015, a similar bill died in a Senate committee, but Melton said he made changes to this year’s bill, including not creating a criminal charge for violations of the ban and allowing certain holds that restrict blood flow, which he said are safer.

Sen. John Cooke, R-Greeley, echoed Williams’ sentiment about why the police reform bills are moving this year, from his perspective as the former sheriff of Weld County.

“Last year there was Ferguson, (Mo.) going on and a lot of emotions going on, the rhetoric has slowed down,” Cooke said. “The rhetoric from the president, he didn’t do law enforcement any favors, there was a lot of rhetoric down here, too, and that seemed to slow and almost come to a halt.”

Cooke said that has opened up doors to build more trust.

He said he needs to do more research on the chokehold ban, but that the concessions Melton made are a good start.

“When you are in a fight for your life you have to do whatever you have to do to survive,” Cooke said. “That might be the only option you have left is to put a chokehold on them. The problem is a chokehold are acceptable and still being trained but they are not being used appropriately. We need to do a better job of training on how to use it and when to use it, not banning a tool that might be useful.”

Melton said his bill is a good compromise and bans a dangerous practice.

Cooke and Williams worked together on several police reform bills in 2015, including a bill signed by the governor mandating the state’s Peace Officers Standards and Training Board to provide anti-bias training and community policing or de-escalation training.

But Williams tried to pass a bill that year updating the state’s 2001 law banning racial profiling.

It died in a Republican controlled Senate committee and faced opposition from 28 Republicans in the House.

A similar bill, House Bill 1263, passed the House Thursday with 17 Republicans voting against it.

Cooke said he still hasn’t decided whether he will support the profiling bill this year.

“If it’s similar to last year I won’t support it,” Cooke said, raising concerns about a bill last year that required the collection of data regarding police stops.

HB 1263 does not include provisions requiring data be collected.

The two are working together on Williams’ second bill, however, one that would require police departments to disclose internal affairs investigations and other disciplinary documents with each other during employment inquiries. The “bad-apples” bill passed unanimously in the House on Thursday, and Cooke is a sponsor.

Cooke said that in practice now if a law enforcement officer does something wrong, it’s common practice for the head of a department to settle with the person that if they resign the records will be sealed.

“This says you can’t do that. You have to open up your personnel and your disciplinary records,” Cooke said. “I want to make sure I’m hiring the best person because they are representing me out there. If they look bad, the entire office looks bad, and as the line officer I wouldn’t want some guy next to me who is heavy handed or is racist.”

Cooke said the downside is that it will be a more time consuming and difficult process to fire bad actors, but he said it’s a necessary process.

Williams said there are many documented cases of bad actors being shuffled from department to department with infractions being swept under the rug.

Finally, a fourth bill passed unanimously Thursday requiring that police departments petition the courts for free to expunge arrest records when a person has been wrongfully arrested due to a mistaken identity.

Rep. Daneya Esgar, D-Pueblo, sponsored the House Bill 1265 and said it was a fairness issue, noting that low-income people cannot afford to petition the court to have the record expunged. Cooke is a sponsor on the bill as well.

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Contact Megan Schrader

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Gabriel Eckert