Photo by Rhonda Van Pelt Manitou Springs Police Chief Bill Otto is settling into his permanent position.

As so many people have done, Bill Otto served in the military at Fort Carson and decided he’d like to stick around afterward. As so many of us do, he was counting the days until retirement.

At age 53, he retired after about 23 years with the El Paso County Sheriff’s Department.

And, like many others, Otto realized he wasn’t quite ready to stay retired.

“I’m still too young to be doing nothing, definitely not rich enough to do nothing,” he told himself.

Otto spotted Manitou Springs Police Department’s opening for a detective, applied, got the job in July 2020 and began serving under then-Police Chief Brian Churchill. After Churchill resigned, Otto stepped up as acting chief in January 2021 and then was named interim chief that summer.

On Feb. 2, 2022, the city posted the permanent position internally and Otto was the only applicant. After a city staff review and a City Council interview, he was offered the job.

“I’m honored that the City Council showed faith in me,” he said.

Otto’s varied experience with the sheriff’s department didn’t hurt. He began as a booking officer at the Criminal Justice Center, then was a patrol officer, school resource officer, detective, patrol sergeant, internal affairs investigator, Special Victims Unit sergeant and Major Crimes Unit sergeant before retiring in 2018.

That means he’s very familiar with what people in those positions experience in the community and what they need from their chief.  

“I’ve seen the administrative side, I’ve seen the Internal Affairs side, the policing side,” he said. “Most of my career I’ve spent in plainclothes as a detective. I’ve supervised detectives, SVU and major crimes, homicides, all that.”

He’s also very mindful of what the community has a right to expect from law enforcement. In a word: integrity.

“You’re judged on how well you protect and care for your community. That’s what we’re here for, this what they pay us to do. I would judge success on how well this department is providing those services to the community,” he said.

“Do they feel safe to walk their dog around the park at night or take a walk in the middle of the night without worrying about being jumped or mugged?”

Otto was already familiar with the more serious crimes that Manitou has dealt with, since the city has a memo of understanding with its larger neighbor.

“The police department here has been understaffed for as long as I can remember,” he said.

But the MSPD is in the process of hiring three more people: one who finished his training on Monday, March 14, and two others who are going through background checks. 

The detective position, Otto’s former job, will stay open until next year because of financial constraints. That may give him some wiggle room to increase salaries.

“It’s a disservice, I think, to the men and women who work in this department to not have this department staffed fully at what’s authorized,” he said.

Otto is strengthening Manitou’s collaboration with the sheriff’s office and the Colorado Springs Police Department because, as he pointed out, trouble tends to flow back and forth between the cities and throughout El Paso County.

One challenge that’s on his radar is the increase in visitors and transients as the weather gets warmer. Otto has been around Manitou long enough to have a good idea of what to expect this summer — although the pandemic reduced the crowds who show up here on weekends and for special events.

He’s optimistic enough to know that major crimes are rare in Manitou, but realistic enough to prepare himself and his people to react to worst-case scenarios.

Otto is working on mental health initiatives, looking at what other cities are doing to help people find assistance, rather than shunting them into the criminal justice system. The frontline solution is to have someone, trained to deal with people in crisis, arriving at the scene alongside a police officer. 

That could take months, but most of the MSPD has been trained in crisis intervention.

One reason he wanted to stay in Manitou is that officers here can spend more time getting to know people.

“In my policing career, you just never had the time. It was call to call to call,” he recalled. “Now, I can walk downtown and I can stop to talk to somebody.”

He’s hearing similar experiences from MSPD’s younger officers, who like getting acquainted with community members. To help with that, the department has purchased two e-bikes for officers to use during Manitou’s major events.

“It breaks down that barrier from a cop sitting in a fully marked police car to a guy sitting on a bike,” he said.

After all these years in the Pikes Peak region, the Oak Lawn, Illinois, native can’t imagine not living near the mountains. 

“Of course, it’s beautiful. I mean, where else can you be right next to the mountains?” he said.

Otto is very conscious of the need to establish relationships with the community, citing active listening as a major skill needed in law enforcement. He knows that people have issues they want to be solved immediately, but it’s not always possible.

“If you build that trust and those relationships, and they understand and they believe and trust that you’re doing what’s in their best interests, that goes a long way.”