Leadville’s first Black police chief alleges he was driven from the job by racist officers and a city administrator who rallied together to force him out of the largely white police department, according to a newly filed federal lawsuit against the city.
Former police chief Hal Edwards alleges his tenure as leader of the small department was cut short last year when officers brought complaints about his leadership style to Leadville’s city administrator, Laurie Simonson, who used the grumblings to force Edwards out of his job even after a third-party investigation found the majority of the complaints to be unfounded or overblown.
“I believe it was racist, and definitively I think I was treated more harshly than my predecessors in this position,” Edwards said in an interview Monday.
Edwards, appointed as a Lake County commissioner last month, blamed Simonson for the ouster, saying the city administrator failed to support him as chief and actively undermined his efforts to lead the department. The lawsuit does not detail any incidents of overtly racist behavior, but rather focuses on the officers’ lack of confidence in Edwards, which he blamed on racism.
“I was the first Black chief of police in a town that was predominately white, and I think there is a long history of Black people who have authority over groups of white employees where our judgment is questioned, competency is questioned, and I think that this was the case with me,” Edwards said.
Simonson did not return 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 started as Leadville’s chief in August 2021. Within months, officers lodged complaints about his leadership style, including that he was rude and didn’t listen to employees. Then, in October 2022, four white police department employees and two Latino employees brought a collective complaint against Edwards to Simonson, who hired a third-party investigator to examine the wide-ranging allegations.
The investigator found most of the complaints against the chief to be baseless or overblown, though some were substantiated, including claims that Edwards used profanity and appointed a field training officer who had not been 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 substantiate claims that Edwards engaged in unprofessional behavior, communications, discrimination or retaliation,” the summary reads.
The outside investigation left open the possibility that the officers’ rebellion was racially motivated, and noted the effort could have been politically motivated as well, as Edwards was running for Lake County sheriff at the time and at least two of the complaining officers supported other candidates.
“While the evidence does not plainly reveal that the complaint is racially motivated, the optics of a mostly white group of officers… complaining about their Black superior is suspect,” the summary reads.
Edwards alleges in the lawsuit that despite the third-party investigation’s findings, Simonson nevertheless placed him on leave, hired an acting chief to replace him, and then instructed that acting chief to re-investigate the officers’ complaints internally. He alleges she placed him on leave as retaliation after he spoke publicly about the third-party investigation’s findings.
Simonson ultimately demanded Edwards either resign or return to work under onerous conditions, the lawsuit alleges. When he rejected her offer, she fired him in February 2023, “under the guise of informing him that she considered him to have ‘resigned,’ ” the lawsuit alleges.
The former chief is seeking unspecified monetary damages for both economic losses and emotional distress, according to the lawsuit. He said Monday he’d also like to see city employees trained on diversity and equity, and see the police department institute regular performance reviews.
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