Dennis Potter retired in 2004 as a Captain with the Jefferson County Colorado Sheriff’s Department in Golden, Colorado. His assignment experience during his 33 years as a peace officer includes Patrol, Jail, Homicide Investigations, Victim Services, Motorcycles, Forensic Laboratory, Evidence, Communications, Civil and Fugitive, Recruiting, Training, Dispatch, Records Management, Crime Prevention, Public Information Officer, Accreditation, Policy Development, Emergency Management, Staff Inspections and Director of the Law Enforcement Training Academy.

Dennis Potter has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colorado State University, and a Masters Degree in American Military Studies from American Military University in Manassas, Virginia.

His critical incident management experience includes police operations of the 2002 Hayman Wildfire, Colorado’s largest wildfire in history, Department manager for three police officer deaths, and Headquarters Supervisor and Operations Chief at the Columbine High School shootings in 1999.

Dennis Potter is currently a college professor in criminal justice and criminology, a critical incident instructor for the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (CALEA), a certified incident command instructor for the National Wildfire Coordinating Group (NWCG), an instructor for the National Incident Management System (NIMS), and a certified critical incident instructor with the New York State Office of Criminal Justice. He has conducted critical incident management seminars for line, staff, support staff, and chief law enforcement executive officers in Florida, Colorado, North Carolina, Delaware, Oregon, Ohio, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Michigan. Dennis Potter is the author of Law Enforcement Incident Command.

Law Enforcement Incident Command: Crisis to Consequence Dennis L. Potter  More Info

According to the book description of Law Enforcement Incident Command, “This text is designed not only to provide answers and the tools for law enforcement to better function in a public safety environment designed on the principles of fire department response plans. It will identify those compromises necessary to comply with, or add to, the National Incident Management model in order to ensure that law enforcement issues are addressed. Without these compromises, future emergency responses to critical incidents by all public safety responders will prove as confusing and frustrating as those incidents NIMS is trying to renovate. The text also identifies those compromises necessary to comply with, or add to, the National Incident Management model in order to ensure that law enforcement issues are addressed.”

About the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office

According to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office, it “was founded in November 1859 and today serves 184,640 residents in the unincorporated areas of the county. As the largest full service sheriff's office in Colorado, the agency has more than 500 sworn deputies and more than 200 non-sworn employees who provide services to the community.  The Sheriff's Office is organized into three divisions: Detention Services, Law Enforcement Services and Support Services, each of which is commanded by a division chief. 

The Jefferson County Detention Facility, or county jail, is the central detention facility for all law enforcement agencies in Jefferson County, including local police departments. The county jail houses inmates and pre-trial detainees who have been committed to the custody of the sheriff.   The staff of the Detention Services Division is responsible for all aspects of the jail: from booking and classification of inmates to facility security, medical services and transportation.

Deputies patrol unincorporated Jefferson County around the clock, responding to emergencies and requests for assistance and enforcing criminal and traffic laws.  Deputies work out of three community-based stations in the south, north and mountain areas of the county.

The Support Services Division is the glue that holds the agency together.  Functions such as fleet maintenance, accounting, radio maintenance and record-keeping ensure that citizens receive quality services from their law enforcement agency.  A wide variety of departments fall under the Support Services umbrella.”