The Gunnison City Council approved a mutual aid agreement for the City of Gunnison Police Department to participate in providing and receiving mutual aid with other law enforcement agencies in the region at its Sept. 8 meeting.
Mayor Diego Plata explained that the city has historically had such an agreement and that the agreement before the council was a 2026 update reflecting current practices and responsibilities. He added that the agreement was developed collaboratively with other law enforcement agencies.
Sam Costello, Chief of Police, said that this agreement is used quite frequently and staffing issues in the valley currently have made it more prominent than in the past. “This gets enacted daily or more at this point so I just want to make sure everybody’s familiar with what it is,” he said.
He said that the city’s police officers, as well as officers for the other agencies participating in the agreement, are all Peace Officer Standards and Training (POST) certified, allowing them to substitute for other officers when needed.
Costello said that the previous mutual aid agreement dates to the early 2000s and was “aged,” although the new agreement was not fundamentally different from the previous one.
The agreement includes the Gunnison County Sheriff’s Office and the Crested Butte and Mount Crested Butte police departments, along with the Gunnison Police Department, he said. Costello added that the agreement does not include Hinsdale County.
The agreement covers any incident where the agency covering the area does not have the resources to respond, he said, including 9-1-1 calls or events that require a police presence.
It governs what actions agencies requesting assistance take when they request aid or receive an aid request, he said.
Costello said that a key priority in evaluating requests for mutual aid is ensuring that the city of Gunnison is covered and that the agreement governs liability, the request process and how aid is issued.
In response to a question from Plata, Costello said that the mutual aid process in this agreement is not the same as police officers being deputized, such as by a sheriff’s office.
Councilor Loren Ahonen asked whether it is normal for a mutual aid agreement to not be updated for this long of a time.
Costello said that, in his experience, “it probably should have been done prior to now” and that he thought the update involving current leadership was valuable.
Mayor Pro Tem Marisela Ballesteros asked why the city does not work with Hinsdale County or the State Patrol.
Costello said that there is a lengthy history with Hinsdale County, including the death of a police officer in the line of duty, and that mutual aid agreements typically cover agencies within a county, not between multiple counties. “So, this is just in the county and these are the most frequent users,” he said. “It doesn’t mean that we would never help Hinsdale County or that they would never help us. It’s just not something that we would do on a nightly basis.”
In response to a question from Councilor Audrey Zaradkha, Costello explained that the agreement does impact Gunnison’s collaboration with Hinsdale County on a combined dispatch center.
The council then unanimously approved the updated mutual aid agreement
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here