GOLDEN, Colo. (KDVR) — Today, the Colorado State Patrol reaches its 90th anniversary of serving and protecting our state.
Each month this year, FOX31 has captured different parts of the patrol and the people who wear the badge. Now, on this 90-year milestone, FOX31 is sitting down exclusively with the head of the state patrol, Col. Matthew C. Packard.
Colorado State Patrol chief shares reflections on agency’s 90th anniversary
“This car’s got a really cool story. This is a 1970 Plymouth Fury,” Colonial Matthew Packard said.
Packard walked FOX31 through CSP’s museum filled with cars, guns and technology, highlighting the evolution of tools utilized by the patrol over the past nine decades.
“I’ll read a compliment about a trooper on La Veta pass that stopped with somebody with a flat tire and they helped him change that tire,” Packard said. “To think 90 years ago, when the legislature created the courtesy Patrol, its first mission was to serve people in that capacity. And it’s we do a lot more today. 90 years has provided a lot of growth and opportunities to serve, but we still do what they ask us to do when we started. And that makes me so proud to know that when somebody needs help that it’s a state trooper that shows up to help.”
The chief reflected on stand-out moments of service in his quarter-century with CSP.
“I will forever remember a crash that I responded to,” Packard said. “I’ll never forget the smells. I’ll never forget the cars. And seeing the young man that she killed in that car.”
More than 20 years ago, while Packard helped a driver change a tire on the side of the road, a call from an off-duty trooper came in about a possible drunk driver coming down Interstate 25.
“They were coming my way, but I had all of my stuff out here on the shoulder and I remember just trying to get that tire changed as fast as I possibly could and threw it in the back of the car,” Packard said. “And the vehicle that was suspected of driving drunk had passed me.”
The car got off the interstate and came back the wrong way in the other direction.
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“And when we got the call for a fatal crash involving a wrong-way driver just south of Lincoln, and my heart sunk in that moment because I knew, I knew I missed that traffic stop by seconds,” Packard said. “Every time my phone rings today or I get an email about somebody else that died, I go back to that moment. I take responsibility for when that stuff happens, whether it’s fair or not. But that’s why we’re here. And that crash that day changed a lot for me. It was still fun, but it was fun with purpose, and I had the opportunity through this job to save people’s lives.”
A number of life-changing moments for Colorado motorists are documented over the past 90 years. Chief remembers looking at his first sergeant’s father’s notes.
“I’m reading about this crash that, was probably 50 years old then, and the statements from the driver, the mechanics of the crash, I’d investigated that very same crash with the same excuses and the same poor decisions, you know, who knows how many times,” Packard said. “In some context, it’s kind of frustrating because, how come we can’t figure this out? But in the other, that professionalism, that ability to investigate through those things, it’s still here today and we are, humbly, we’re better at it today than we used to be. And I think society depends on demands us to be better at it. It’s more challenging, but the root cause is still the same. Unfortunately, people make some poor decisions when they get behind cars that have lethal consequences.”
Technology may improve, trainings and tactics my update, but Packard says the core values that state troopers are known for, remain the same.
“In the next 90 years, I am confident that the organization is going to continue to be professional and live by those core values of honor and duty and respect and be in be founded in those things,” Packard said. “But the service that we’re going to provide is going to look different. I look at us today, even the difference that we’re doing today compared to when I started 25 years ago, it’s pretty remarkable. But as long as there’s transportation happening, there’s going to be the Colorado State Patrol that’s going to help police that transportation.”
Looking ahead to the next 90 years, we asked Packard about his goals for CSP.
“But my goal is that this organization stands on the balls of its feet and ready to take on whatever Colorado needs us to do,” Packard said. “And that will do it on that same foundation of value-based policing.”
The public can join members of CSP, past and present, in celebrating 90 years of service with an open house. The event is on Saturday, Sept. 27, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Colorado Law Enforcement Academy at 15055 S. Golden Road, Golden, CO 80401.
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