Topaz McBride at a rally supporting fired Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at Aurora City Hall. PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at Aurora City Hall April 11, 2022 before making her first public comments about her ouster since she was fired last week. PHOTO BY PHILIP B. POSTON/Sentinel Colorado 
Aurora city councilmember Juan Marcano at a rally supporting ousted Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Aurora Police Sgt. Paul Poole at a rally supporting ousted Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado 
Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week. Philip B. Poston/Sentinel Colorado
AURORA | Surrounded by supporters on the steps of the headquarters of her now-former employer, Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson said Monday she intends to continue to fight to ensure police reform continues, that policing is improved and those officers who abuse the system or citizens are held accountable.
“Leadership is not a popularity contest,” she said, attributing her ouster to political pressure stemming from police who do not want to see changes. “There should not be partisan politics in public safety.”
Supporters took turns praising the work Wilson did and criticizing her ouster.
“When Chief Wilson was in charge, I found my voice,” an officer of color said anonymously as it was read by Aurora Police Sgt. Paul Poole. “I worry about the direction this department is going.” The officer said he or she doesn’t want to return to unethical officers not being held accountable. “Which of the officers that Chief Wilson fired do you want patrolling your neighborhood?”
Some current city lawmakers also warned about the consequences of the ouster.
Councilmember Juan Marcano said, “what you are seeing is a concerted, organized campaign to undermine and sabotage” the change community members were demanding in 2020. “You are seeing a police department at war with itself.”
Former officials also decried the ouster.
“APD is broken and council’s solution was to destroy the only thing that had been going right,” said former Councilmember Debi Hunter Holen.
Wilson was fired by City Manager Jim Twombly last week for what he said was a lack of confidence in her ability to lead the department. The ouster came after months of criticism by conservative members of city council, and more recently, days of rumor that the termination was imminent.
“Chief Wilson prioritized community involvement. This is something we all recognize as a strength of hers,” Twombly said during a news conference last week. “However there is more to achieve that involves management of the police department. There also needs to be effective management of department operations, engagement with officers and staff and a strategic approach to moving the department forward. There are two main themes that continue to rise up top of concerns overall management, and overall leadership. This is a decision that came with a considerable amount of thought and ongoing discussions with officers in the police department.”
Twombly didn’t offer a specific event or instance that led to his decision, but told reporters that he didn’t credit the rise in crime to her leadership nor a recent outside report by PRI Management that chronicles a backlog in an administrative process that reviews “reports for quality control purposes.”
That report was leaked to the press one day prior to Twombly’s decision to fire Wilson.
Wilson, a 26-year veteran of APD, was appointed by Twombly to lead the department in August 2020 after serving as interim chief for seven months. She took the helm at a time the department was reeling from protests following the death of Elijah McClain and several other scandals, and much of her tenure was spent attempting to rebuild the public’s trust.
Asked to elaborate on the reasons for her firing, Wilson said she believed they were political in nature and that the issue with the records backlog was a convenient excuse.
She disputed Twombly’s assertion that he was only aware of the records problem when the PRI report came out, and said that he had congratulated her for bringing the problem to his attention earlier.
She declined to place the blame for her ousting entirely at his feet, however, saying that Twombly is “a good man” who had stood by her when she faced criticism for making tough decisions in the past.
“I would like to give him some grace in this,” she said. “I know he is under extreme political pressure whether he wants to admit it or not.”
Wilson said she is “considering all options” with her lawyer, Paula Greisen but declined to say whether she will be suing the city.
She said she does not know what her next steps will be, but is exploring “ways I can serve this community, as well as law enforcement somewhere in the future.”
Bye
Exactly what we said when she canned you.
..and at least that one was deserved! But you know what they say, you can’t keep people with no shame down.
I have heard it said that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and thereby remove all doubt. Something for you to ruminate upon.
The new pseudo conservative wing of the city council is trash.
Jurinsky is the worst, very stupid and childish but sondberg and the failed DC muck dweller Coffman are giving her a run for her money.
Chief Wilson stepped in when that other coward (Coffmans good ol buddy metz) gave up.
And wow have the good ol boys and violent racists in the APD and police union hated her ever since. God forbid we have some accountability, otherwise those poor poor officers wouldn’t get to choke and murder (as much).
Now this new gambit about the unresolved cases, conveniently leaked by that rat Twombly. Using a discredited hack. That he new about for years prior. That he had congratulated chief Wilson for her steps to resolve. THAT ARE THE DIRECT RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CITY MANAGER.
This is a typical repugnican hack job:
Accuse
Lie
Deflect
Scapegoat
Circle wagons.
You make me sick. You’re embarrassingly incompetent even by the low bar of this council.
Resign immediately.
Phil
Right?! If you would have told me it could get worse than Dave Gruber, I would have laughed. But if we learned anything since 2016, it’s that it can Always get worse!
As Lincoln said, “You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time”. For those of you who don’t really know Vanessa Wilson, you are being fooled. You can believe that phony facade. The people who have known her for her whole career know what she is. She has never been respectful toward the officers, never displayed competence, never stood up when she was part of prior corrupt police administrations, and has never stood up to challenge the many lies that have been thrown at the department. Yes, she fired some officers who deserved it. Tell me, what police politician would not have known that that had to be done in today’s environment? She certainly never showed that conscientious and ethical behavior during the many years she was in the department. The officers know that she was watching the news to decide when she should be ethical. Meanwhile, she was yelling at her staff and acting like a little dictator. So, it is nice that she has all of the activists on her side. Unfortunately, they have an agenda and disregard any facts that are inconvenient. They are responsible for things like the police reform bill that has devastated police work in Colorado. They won’t, however, debate or publicly discuss that bill in front of the public. They scream transparency and I agree. But that transparency only applies when it fits their needs. I will put some credence in their opinions when they have the courage to publicly debate people who know something.
And here comes Don, the only one that knows anything.
Crime has risen in the past 2 years; therefore someone had to go. Don’t make something political that doesn’t have to be. That is what got us into this situation. 🙁
Whether you like her or not, she’s a good woman.
You really don’t know her like all the cops that have worked with her for years. She’s not!
She is not. She is a coward and completely fails at doing what is right. As Don says she looks to the libtard talking heads to see which way she act.
And make no mistake because of her “wokeness” she ran off a couple hundred very good officers.
Elections have consequences. The left to middle left lost the last election, the middle right to the far right won.
Yep. One side got out its voters. Those on the other side failed to let their voices be heard.
Don’t recall ever seeing a “pep rally” for a fired governmental employee anywhere, including Aurora before. Is this how the socialists and far left democrats say good-by to their friends?
I didn’t attend but in the pictures, I only saw Coombs and Marcano our two card carrying Socialist Council members. Next election, let’s help them follow in the steps of our ex-chief. Then they can have a pep rally, too.
It happens all the time and has nothing to do with socialism, a word whose meaning you don’t even know. You just casually toss the word “socialist” around in reference to anyone with whom you disagree.
Joe, stop playing the fool. Coombs and Marcano are proud members of the largest socialist organization in the U.S. DSA’s words, not mine. Why, oh why, do you deny the label THEY have chosen by their membership. It’s not disparaging; it’s simply a fact.
Joe, I dare you to google “communist fist” then see if it resembles anything that Coombs is wearing on her lapel? …wait… it is the exact same thing. So google is in on the conspiracy now?
…and why is there only silence from the City’s mayor concerning this situation? Quite the leader, wouldn’t you say!!
Because you don’t run cities by mob rule. It was the right decision for the future.
Betty, the mayor has not been exactly silent on this matter. See what this very paper published on that below. Even so, it’s moot; in a weak mayor form of municipal government, the decision lies in the hands of the city manager, Jim Twombley.
“Mayor Mike Coffman wrote in an April 5 statement that there was “no excuse” for the “catastrophic failure of leadership within the department,” regarding the PRI report.
“The result of this backlog means that crimes, whether it’s a murder case or a motor vehicle theft, are going cold before they are ever investigated and that habitual criminals are allowed to reoffend before the rank and file at APD is made aware of the crimes that they’ve already committed,” he wrote on April 5.”
He’s the Great Waffler!
Chief Wilson was helping to restore my faith in our APD. I hope she uses all the legal options at her disposal, and council works as hard as they can to get her back