Denver city officials hired a new police officer two years ago without realizing the man previously kept sexually explicit photos of children on his phone and used the images for sexual gratification — an offense that should have prevented his hiring.
Now-former Denver police officer James Gurley resigned in July after he applied for a job with a police department in Arizona and that agency discovered his use of child sexual-abuse material during a polygraph exam in its hiring process, according to police records provided to The Denver Post on Thursday in response to an open records request.
Gurley’s actions were not discovered when he was hired by the Denver Police Department in 2022, even though he also underwent a polygraph exam as part of Denver’s hiring process.
Gracie Perez, executive director of Denver’s Civil Service Commission, said Friday that there were no red flags when Gurley was hired in 2022, but that the commission is reviewing its processes to prevent any similar lapses in the future.
“When I looked at the polygraph exam and his answers to the questions, there really was non-disclosure (of the child sexual-abuse material), and there really wasn’t anything that could have led to finding out the information,” she said.
Denver police started an internal affairs investigation in July after the Scottsdale Police Department alerted Denver to its findings during Gurley’s polygraph exam for a job there.
Gurley’s answers did not appear truthful during that exam, and when pressed, he admitted that he’d started looking at sexually explicit photos of children as a teenager and continued to do so multiple times a week until he was 20 — about six years ago.
He admitted that he looked at images of girls as young as 5, and said he kept about 100 images on his phone in a secret folder until he was 20, when he said he upgraded his phone and lost the folder, according to a Denver police internal affairs report summary.
Scottsdale police alerted Denver to their findings on July 2, and Gurley resigned July 12, the records show.
He could not be reached for comment Friday.
On his hiring questionnaire in Denver, Gurley responded “No” to a question about whether he had ever viewed pictures of children for sexual gratification, according to internal affairs records.
Perez said Friday she’d reviewed Gurley’s polygraph report and was working on obtaining a video recording of his actual exam from one of the three outside vendors the city uses to administer polygraphs to give it a closer review.
“What I’ve come to learn is polygraph is a science that is mid-to-high 80% accuracy, so it’s really not foolproof,” Perez said. “…It’s unfortunate that on this one we didn’t notice or observe or have any information that would lead us to believe he would not be qualified. This is something I definitely want to prevent in the future. So we are looking into our current processes.”
Perez was hired in August. Her predecessor, former executive director Niecy Murray, was fired in May hours after she publicly accused Mayor Mike Johnson of pressuring her to lower hiring standards for police officers.
Perez said Friday that the polygraph exam has been a long-standing part of the city’s hiring process and while there have been occasional calls from stakeholders to do away with the polygraph, the commission plans to keep the requirement in place.
She noted that the polygraph exam is just one piece of the screening process, which also includes a questionnaire, psychological assessment, background check and interview.
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