Federal Heights police failed to investigate serious crimes, DA finds

The Federal Heights Police Department has failed to investigate serious felony cases over the last four years in a pattern so “utterly alarming” that 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason referred the matter to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office for a potential “patterns or practice” investigation into the police department.

Police officers in Federal Heights, a northern suburb of Denver that’s sandwiched between Thornton and Westminster, have failed to investigate serious felony crimes — including sexual assaults and violent crimes — and detectives failed to follow up with victims in some cases, Mason wrote in an Oct. 31 letter to Interim Chief Robert Grado that was obtained by The Denver Post on Monday.

Mason found the police department to be “woefully…