The History of DAPIG

The "story" of DAPIG starts in the early 70's in Denver. Several burglary detectives got together once a month to compare notes and discuss what was going on in their districts in relation to crime. Their names were JC Tyus, Lester Beaulieau and Rick Rollins. Others came along later like Gary Regan, Rick Vigil, Chuck Friend and Bill Wiederspan.

This monthly meeting grew to 30 or so detectives networking and sharing information on a regular basis. Detectives got to know each other and became aware that certain crimes crossed over the jurisidiction lines, had patterns and sometimes the same criminal was committing crimes all over the metro area.

These monthly meetings were highly successful in bringing multiple cases together and allowing prosecution of offenders that were active in mulitple jurisdictions.

The organization grew and was briefly organized to the point where an annual conference would be held as a fund raiser at various locations around Colorado. Founding member Lester Beaulieu died of cancer shortly after retiring and DAPIG decided to name an annual "Investigator of the Year" award in his honor.

In the 90's the organization became a non-profit organization officially when Rick Rollins, JC Tyus and Westminster Detective Mattt Rippy signed the paperwork with the state. For about three years the organization flourished until a lot of the original founding members retired and the monthly meetings became sporadic.

In the mid nineties, Denver Sgt. William "Bill" Wiederspan figured out he could send "group" faxes from his machine at the Denver Airport to all the dapig members. For about two years, He would routinely notify 30-60 DAPIG members of current crime activities on a weekly basis. He somewhat resurrected the organization by allowing current information to be passed on to members with the sending of a single fax.

In 1998, Thornton Det. N. Ash took it a step further and started sending a "group" email to all the dapig members on a daily basis and allowed members to forward emails directly to him so that he could post them to the group. He sent daily emails out for the next 6 years. The daily emails grew rapidly and membership in DAPIG peaked at over 200 members. Metro area detectives simply asked to be put on the "list" just to keep up with the current trends. Not all members liked the crammed full "inboxes" but the idea started to catch on.

In 2004, Thornton Det. N. Ash worked in conjunction with an IT tech, J. Cannon and they actually pulled an old city computer out of the junk pile, combined some parts from another one and built a server to function as a mail listserve.

The idea of a 24/7 email listserve for DAPIG was born. Email listserves had been routinely used in educational facilities for years but they were brand new to law enforcement. The listserve membership took off and now over 450 Denver Metro and Colorado detectives use the listserv daily to communicate and share information. Cases are cleared daily on the listserv as leads are generated and suspects are identified by detectives. Two way communication was now connecting metro area detectives across jurisdiction lines that traditionally weren't crossed.

In the fall of 2007, a name change for the DAPIG organization was suggested and put to a vote of the membership. The majority of the members voted to keep the "old" name simply because it was well known and easy to remember.

In 2008, Det. N. Ash and J. Cannon added a second listserv to a new server being used by DAPIG and an additional 300 members of a financial crimes investigatory group were added to the "network". The combined membership now of the network is over 750 members and stretches statewide. The financial group is called The Rocky Mountain Financial Investigator's Network (RMFIN) and is managed by Det. J. Acker with Thornton PD.

In 2008, DAPIG's expenses were growing so the organization was again incorporated as a non-profit organization and a new DAPIG supervisory board was formed. This website was added and the new board will take DAPIG into the future decades of property crime investigations.

The new "charter" board met on Feb 6th, 2008. By-laws were written up, officers were chosen and goals for the future were set. The charter board members were Thornton Det. N. Ash, Broomfield Det. B. Sullivan, Thornton Det. D. Smith, Boulder County Det. C. Fiegel and Denver Det. D. Stolley. K. Charpentier with Broomfield PD is serving as DAPIG's administrative assistant.

The future of DAPIG is bright and the need for sharing of information ever-present. We only hope we can carry on the initial aspirations of the original founding members.

JC Tyus said it best in 2000 when he was about to retire after 30 plus years in property crime investigations, "we were all working the same crimes, might as well work 'em together as a team".