Editor: Last week while driving east on Mississippi Ave; between I-225 and Chambers Rd. I noticed something strange in the auto immediately in front of me, fact is what I observed was an official temp vehicle registration plate that had an expiration date Of FEB, 2020! That’s correct expired Feb; 2020 and still out there on our streets.
A few minutes ago I telephoned this info into the sec. office of Aurora council members and during the process I asked please tell me where are all our uniformed officers on street patrol and why is this observed vehicle still out there violating the law? As I told the person taking my complaint the answer is simple: Because we have lost sooo many of our officers to other precincts that we can no, longer patrol our streets.
I live in SW Aurora near Tower Rd. and east Iliff Ave; and am blasted constantly by the noise coming from racing type vehicles playing Steve McQueen in the film “Bulit. Why is this so I asked the lady at council office because we have lost soo many of our officers to other cities where the pay and benefits are reported to be much better than ours. Folks, our city is burning down with lack of patrol officers simply because our city council will do nothing to stop the process because that will require increasing taxes to pay greater benefits and salaries to bring them back here and remain. Higher salaries required to raise their families. Council must do something immediately to stop this massive bleeding before the patient is DOA!
— Kenneth Phillips, via [email protected]
The speeding on Tower is a huge issue – love the Bullit reference btw.
There is no reason to send armed officers to track down an expired registration tag. This is a perfect example of the kind of work that can and should be redistributed to a civilian department.
I would love it if our city and county electeds could work on imaginative, creative solutions that will 1) raise our solve rate (which is pathetic) and 2) offload situations that DO NOT REQUIRE AN ARMED RESPONSE like noise complaints, traffic collisions, etc to trained peacekeeping civilians. We’d create more jobs and decrease the overwhelming amount of nonsense that police are called to address.
But I’m not holding my breath.
Let’s try to be honest here. Most are not leaving for higher pay. They are leaving because they can no longer do their jobs and they are at risk if they do their jobs. I repeat this over and over. The legislature passed a “Police Reform Bill” that created vague guidelines on use of force and lots of punishments if you violated the vague guidelines that no one can explain. Further, the activists have won the day and now we have prosecutors who want to prosecute the police for even the most minor misstep. We have civilian oversight by people who don’t just want transparency, but instead want to be able to punish the police. These are often people who simply hate the police, like our legislator, Herrod. It would be different if they knew something about use of force or law enforcement. Then, when you consider that Chief Wilson is a politician who will not support her officers if there is the slightest question, you have a recipe for disaster. Don’t get me wrong. I realize that even a good chief can’t really fix things with what the legislature has done and continues to do. So, we will rush out a lot of new officers with no experience into a situation where they are discouraged from doing their jobs. We will have to pay more to officers who do less. Notice that the activists don’t want people stopped for minor offenses because some of the criminals have been killed when they fought the police. Those minor stops are what kept the lid on society and kept guns and wanted people off the street. Get used to the fact that all minor crimes are now legal. Our media and the legislators have created a new reality for you. Notice too that our politician chiefs will not stand up and tell you what I am telling you. In addition, law enforcement does not buy into the systemic racism attached to the police. Why would I want to be a police officer under these circumstances? We will get more people who only want to do it for the money and not out of service to the public. Sad.