DENVER — Kelly Davis walked into the Cripple Creek Police Department in October 2021 to report claims of sex trafficking at the Cripple Creek Campgrounds. That’s when she first met Police Officer Alexander Kenoyer, who was tasked with investigating her case. Disarmed by his professionalism and kind demeanor, Davis started messaging with Kenoyer almost every day. The messages quickly turned sexual, she said.  

It would take Davis months to realize the unethical nature of this relationship—she said Kenoyer used his psychological training as a police officer to take advantage of the situation. She reported the relationship to Cripple Creek Police.  

By December 2022, Kenoyer was charged with sexual misconduct by a police officer, public indecency, and attempting to influence a public servant because of his conduct with Davis.  

As part of a plea deal, the sexual misconduct charges were dropped. He was sentenced to 58 days in jail, plus two years' probation for the other charges.  

“I lost everything that I had, and he went to jail for 60 days,” said Davis. 

This was not the first time Kenoyer had been accused of sexual misconduct while on duty, however. 

During Davis’s trial, it was uncovered that Kenoyer had been involved in a sexual relationship with the subject of a criminal investigation while an officer at the Colorado Springs Police Department. He resigned from that position in 2012 and was rehired in Cripple Creek, only an hour’s drive away.  

At the time, it was common practice for police departments to let officers resign and close investigations without determining if wrongdoing was committed.   

“Early on in my career, the culture was if there was a problem individual, you remove them from the agency by simply allowing them to resign in lieu of termination, which I think just shifted the problem to another department and never addressed it,” said Louisville Police Chief Rafael Gutierrez. 

During the appeals process of the investigation, an agreement would be made with the city allowing the officer to resign instead of being fired, Gutierrez said. It was standard practice.

Louisville Police Chief Rafael Gutierrez was one of the only police chiefs willing to speak out about the practice.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS 

Legislation made police officer employment data public in January 2022. Rocky Mountain PBS decided to investigate examples of this resignation loophole in more recent years. We found a total of 158 officers who “resigned/retired in lieu of termination” or “resigned/retired while under investigation” since January 2022. Over the same time period, 119 officers were fired. 

There is no statute requiring police departments to complete investigations into their officers if they resign, meaning other departments are not privy to important information about the officers when making hiring decisions. For these officers seeking new employment, resigning can offer key benefits.  

The danger of passing the buck

To determine why officers resigned, we examined public records from law enforcement agencies collected by partners of the Colorado News Collaborative, including reporters from Rocky Mountain Public Media, Colorado Newsline, The Sentinel in Aurora, 9News and Colorado Public Radio.   

At the end of August 2020, Waylon Lolotai resigned from the Boulder Police Department following a professional standards investigation into his conduct, including his posting about “use of force Fridays” on social media. 

Lolotai had come under scrutiny for forceful interactions with civilians several times during his time in Boulder, including for the arrest of Sammie Lawrence, which resulted in a $95,000 lawsuit settlement paid by the city in 2022. 

The investigation determined Lolotai’s social media use violated the department’s policies, though termination wasn’t recommended. Lolotai decided to resign due to “concerns about his and his family’s safety” and “his ability to be effective as a police officer,” according to a press release from the department at the time of his departure.  

In the press release, then-Police Chief Maris Herold wished Lolotai “the best as he [sought] new employment.” 

This was not Lolotai’s first resignation from a law enforcement agency amid an investigation into his behavior. 

Four years earlier, Lolotai resigned from his position at the Denver Sheriff’s Department during an investigation into his use of inappropriate force against an inmate at the Downtown Detention Center. The allegations against Lolotai – inappropriate force and harassment of a prisoner – were considered resolved upon his resignation in June 2016. Boulder Police Department hired Lolotai shortly after.  

Deputy Chief Ron Gosage said the Boulder Police Department conducts an intensive background check on potential hires, including a home visit and a review of any internal affairs (IA) investigations connected to that officer at their previous department.  

However, when IA investigations are not complete, hiring managers could be missing key details about an officer’s background.  

“When you're looking at lateral candidates or other officers moving from one department to another, it's beneficial during our background investigations to know what the outcome would have been if that person was still with your department and if your recommendation would have been termination,” Gutierrez said. “That's certainly what we would need to consider.” 

Today, Police Chief Gutierrez says the Louisville Police Department always completes investigations, but that not every department will come up with a disposition, or an outcome, of the investigation. However, he thinks this is changing in recent years.

Police Chief Rafael Gutierrez at the Louisville Police Department.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

Several officials with larger police departments who were willing to speak to Rocky Mountain PBS, such as the Boulder Police Department, said that in the recent past, they've completed investigations, even after an officer has left the department. 

However, costly and time-consuming public records requests make it difficult to verify the completion of every investigation. Depending on the nature of the investigation, departments can decide not to release records, even after payment for the request has been made. 

For smaller departments, continuing an investigation after an officer’s departure can be a strain on their resources. Bayfield town attorney Michael Goodman said that after former Town Marshal Joseph McIntyre retired while under investigation, the town decided not to complete the investigation for that reason. 

A few departments we spoke with were unable to say whether they would complete the investigation after an officer’s resignation because they haven’t faced that decision before. 

‘Resigned’ has a better ring to it 

There are several reasons why an officer might prefer to leave on their own terms during an investigation. 

When an officer resigns, they don’t have to cooperate with the investigation into accusations against them. 

Terminated employees typically have a harder time finding their next job prospect, according to Indeed. By resigning, officers can also avoid having a termination on their record, which can be beneficial for them during their search for new employment.  

“I can only assume that when this person goes to apply for a new job, regardless of what that job is, whether it's in law enforcement or anything else and they're asked, have you ever been fired from a job, they think that they can say no,” said Gosage. 

In other instances, they may keep a good rapport with the department. This was the case with Bayfield Town Marshal Joseph McIntyre, who retired while under investigation. His retirement was announced in a Facebook post by the Bayfield Police Department, which called him “a true leader” who “always led his department with integrity, honesty and fairness.” 

Maintaining a positive relationship with their former department can be helpful when officers look for a new job in law enforcement. 

“Typically, employees who resign and end on good terms with an employer have a greater chance of receiving a positive reference from that former employer,” according to Indeed. 

Prior misconduct isn’t a dealbreaker 

After protests broke out against police brutality following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, Colorado adopted legislation designed to hold law enforcement officers more accountable.  

As of January 2022, police and sheriff’s departments are now required to report information about their officers, including certain instances of misconduct, to a state database — offering the public a rare view into the inner-workings of law enforcement, their employment practices and disciplinary procedures.  

The database, which only goes as far back as January 2022, offers a two-year snapshot of employment across the state. The pattern of officers accused of wrongdoing resigning and being rehired is already beginning to emerge. 

Even when a department completes an investigation into a former officer and finds wrongdoing, it may not affect the officer’s ability to work at another department. 

Tyler Lynch resigned while under investigation from the Northglenn Police Department in January 2023. Over the course of his three years with the department, Lynch was the subject of several investigations and at least one complaint for his aggressive off-duty behavior. 

In February 2020, Lynch forced a pressure point on the suspect’s jaw to make him cooperate during an arrest. An internal investigation found Lynch’s use of force to be unnecessary and not within the department’s policy. There’s no indication of disciplinary action taken against Lynch in the IA files Rocky Mountain PBS obtained from department. 

In July 2022, a Colorado Parks and Wildlife officer made a complaint against Lynch for his belligerent and offensive behavior after he approached Lynch about not having a required permit to operate his side business delivering rental campers at a state park. The complaint was sustained. 

The next month, Lynch responded to a call for service when three teenage girls hit a rock in a gas station parking lot, resulting in a flat tire and damage to the vehicle. Lynch turned off his body camera during the interaction and told the officer he was supervising to do the same. The other officer at the scene reported that Lynch made unprofessional comments to the girls, including telling them he got drunk at a work-sponsored event. 

The investigation into this incident found that Lynch’s actions on the scene – both his decision to turn off his body camera and his conduct with the teenage girls – violated the department’s policies and values. 

During that same time, the department opened another investigation into Lynch’s behavior on social media. Lynch posted a video to TikTok of a female coworker solving a math problem with the hashtag “Women in Law Enforcement.” The video garnered numerous comments disparaging his coworker’s intelligence. 

He posted two other videos asking this coworker trick questions suggested by viewers in the comments. These videos also drew negative comments against the female officer. The internal investigation incident found Lynch guilty of discriminatory harassment. 

After leaving behind a string of policy violations at Northglenn Police Department, Lynch was rehired at the Adams County Sheriff’s Office, who wouldn’t answer Rocky Mountain PBS’s questions about why the department hired Lynch.

Adams County Sheriff’s Office where Tyler Lynch was rehired after resigning last year from Northglenn Police Department.
Photo: Lizzie Mulvey, Rocky Mountain PBS

Like Lynch, the mistreatment of female coworkers led to an investigation into Richard Norton at the Broomfield Police Department. 

Richard Norton resigned from the Broomfield Police Department in July 2022. An internal investigation found that Norton sent inappropriate and unwanted sexual messages to four of his female coworkers and created a hostile and offensive work environment.  

The investigation report recommended Norton’s termination, and Norton resigned a few weeks later. Norton now works at the Morrison Police Department. 

Whenever an agency hires an officer with a negative action in the POST database, it’s required to report it to POST via a document known as Form 15. Agency heads must submit this form within 15 days of hiring the officer, acknowledging that the new hire has a negative action — like resigning while under investigation — and explaining why they decided to hire them anyway.  

In his explanation, Morrison Police Chief Bill Vinelli wrote that the information the department found on Norton “[did] not preclude him from being a good fit as an officer for [their] department.” 

Before filling out the Form 15, Vinelli said he reviewed everything from Norton’s previous agency that related to his negative POST action. Rocky Mountain PBS, in collaboration with Colorado News Collaborative, requested documents from the Broomfield Police Department relating to Norton’s recommended termination. The documents about the investigation describe the sexual harassment claims made against Norton and found them to be sustained. 

Given he hired an officer with sustained sexual harassment claims at his previous employer, Rocky Mountain PBS asked Vinelli what behavior would lead him to disqualify a potential officer candidate.  

“We've all said or done something in our life that could come back and haunt us,” Vinelli said. “If I have a chance to change somebody’s life to make a positive impact and turn a negative into a positive in their career field, I'll take that chance.” 

Vinelli said he doesn’t regret hiring Norton, who he promoted to sergeant in September. 

A first step toward accountability 

The POST database offers surface-level transparency into the actions and consequences of police officers.

While it provides a broad look at how many officers are resigning under investigation or in lieu of termination, the database doesn’t include any details about the circumstances under which an officer resigned. 

There’s no note to indicate the kind of misconduct that prompted the investigation or led to the officer’s near-termination. It doesn’t include complaints or lawsuits filed against the officer. 

If concerned citizens want to learn more about why an officer resigned or what the investigation was about, they need to submit a public records request.  

These requests can be costly, and there’s no guarantee that they will yield results. For example, Rocky Mountain PBS spent $700 in records requests to report this story. 

Agencies are required to release documents relating to a complete internal investigation when it involves “the in-uniform or on-duty conduct of a peace officer…related to an incident of alleged misconduct involving a member of the public.” When those parameters aren’t met, the agency can choose not to release the records. 

Additionally, it can take months for updates, including an officer’s decertification, to be reflected in the database. 

In its current form, the POST database is better equipped as a tool for asking questions rather than finding answers.

Lizzie Mulvey is the executive producer of investigative journalism at Rocky Mountain PBS. Lizziemulvey@rmpbs.org.

Carly Rose is a multimedia journalist at Rocky Mountain PBS. Carlyrose@rmpbs.org.