Boulder has reversed course.

After the City Manager’s and City Attorney’s offices earlier this month directed the city to bar Gunbarrel-based BI, Inc. from paying the city for off-duty police officers to make extra patrols at its offices, Boulder resumed letting the business use the service.

The police department program allowing entities to pay for extra police presence is a common practice in law enforcement, with groups such as the Bolder Boulder using the service annually and paying the department for the extra cost of providing patrol at events when the officers would normally be off duty.

City officials’ direction to the police department to stop offering services to BI came after community members emailed city leaders raising concerns about whether BI had any contracts with the city, stemming from local disdain for the company’s involvement with immigration agencies.

Boulder police spokeswoman Shannon Aulabaugh confirmed the city’s reversal of its initial decision to no longer provide the service to BI, which has been the target of local protests over its multi-million dollar contracts with federal immigration authorities.

She said the city’s change in course was motivated by safety concerns, but declined to specify the concerns that prompted the turnaround, stating doing so would “further jeopardize safety.”

An email sent Thursday by a Boulder police commander to BI, shared with the Camera by the company and confirmed by Aulabaugh, shows the law enforcement agency explained it did not make the decision to ban the business from the service.

“Please understand that we realize the refusal to fulfill off-duty police officer requests for BI, Inc.’s Gunbarrel facility has been difficult and upsetting for BI’s employees,” the email stated. “As you know the decision was not the police department’s choice.”

The business is responsible for paying the police department for its cost to provide officers who would normally be off duty for the extra patrols.

Boulder’s initial decision to bar BI from using the service came on the heels of Denver declining to renew contracts with private prison giants CoreCivic and GEO Group; BI is a subsidiary of the latter.

Protests outside an Aurora GEO Group immigration detention facility earlier this year, along with the demonstrations outside BI’s Gunbarrel offices prompted the Boulder firm to look into additional security precautions.

“(The decision’s reversal) leads me to not understanding where the city of Boulder stands on holding businesses within its city limits accountable for their impact on the community,” Katie Farnan said.

Farnan is an activist who has taken issue with anecdotes relayed to her and fellow activists by immigrants in the monitoring program BI runs for the feds, which involves wearing location-tracking ankle bracelets. Farnan claims program participants have complained of feeling humiliated by wearing the devices, that they have suffered verbal abuse by BI employees and that employees require more sensitivity training for LGBTQ program participants.

“I want us to work together to figure out how to get to a place where we share those values without betraying those who are most vulnerable among us,” Farnan said. “… I hope the city can share reasoning for the reversal. … It felt like the city was standing in solidarity with people who have no power.”

Boulder police offered to perform a security evaluation for BI following the protests, and the department recommended to the business that it engage the off-duty police patrol service, GEO Group spokesman Rich Coolidge said.

In the time since Boulder told BI it would no longer perform the extra patrols at its offices, the business had contracted a private security firm, but plans to switch back to using the police department.

“Sadly, the false narratives and political rhetoric about our company has resulted in real threats and the endangerment of our employees around the country,” Coolidge said. “We appreciate the Boulder officials reversing course on their decision to single out our company and our employees by withholding off-duty police protection, which we pay for at our own expense. We have been part of the Boulder community for more than three decades and appreciate the professional men and women who serve as Boulder police officers and welcome the opportunity to work with them again.”

BI is the only non-alcohol and non-marijuana related business in Boulder to have been prevented from using the police service by city policy; establishments that sell the vices are not allowed to use the police program.

“Even though the police department stopped providing off-duty police services to BI we were still in communication with them,” Aulabaugh said. “In many instances, businesses are able to hire private security to adequately meet their needs. In this situation, safety concerns were the driving force in the decision to resume off-duty police services. The police department consulted with both the City Manager’s Office and City Attorney’s Office who agreed it was the right thing to do.”