DENVER — Colorado Parks and Wildlife Director Dan Prenzlow retired Tuesday following a third-party investigation into an alleged racist remark he made toward a Black employee at an annual conference this spring.
Prenzlow, who had been with the agency since 1986 and became its director in 2019, had been on paid administrative leave since April, when conference attendees said he tried to thank a Black employee by saying, “There she is, in the back of the bus, Aloe!”
The remark, which harkens back to Jim Crow-era laws mandating Black people sit in the back of public buses, prompted the state to hire an outside firm, Investigations Law Group, to look into those comments and others made during the conference.
