BOULDER, Colo. — Boulder's City Council removed a member of the city's Police Oversight Panel Thursday night for being too critical of police.
City Council voted 5-2 to accept the recommendations from a special council and remove Lisa Sweeney-Miran from the Police Oversight Panel.
The panel's intended purpose was to review and make recommendations on police discipline investigations. That includes recommending changes to policy and training.
Sweeney-Miran only served on the Police Oversight Panel for a few months and has been under investigation most of that time.
The city hired the special counsel to look into complaints that she shouldn't have been put on the panel due to anti-police bias. Sweeney-Miran has been vocally critical of law enforcement, while also being supportive of alternatives like co-responder programs.
In her defense, Sweeney-Miran says scrutiny is part of oversight.
The special counsel had recommended Sweeney-Miran either resign or be removed from the panel because of her "perceived or actual bias."
Of the members who voted to remove her, some explained their decision, saying it wasn't that Sweeney-Miran was unfit for the job. Instead, they worried that keeping her on the panel despite the recommendation of the special council would open its decisions to both criticism and litigation.
“To be honest, removing Lisa is a slap in the face to the people who vetted and nominated her,” once of those councilmembers, Rachel Friend, said before to remove her.
After Thursday's vote, Sweeney-Miran took to Twitter, calling council's vote to interfere with police oversight "unlawful and unethical."
"By overruling the voices of NAACP Boulder County and El Centro Amistad, the City of Boulder is silencing the very voices the Police Oversight Panel was created to elevate," She wrote. "We are not done with this fight."
SUGGESTED VIDEOS: Latest from 9NEWS