Persistent Aurora police-shooting activists say they’ll focus on city election

AURORA | Activists who have for more than a year demanded discipline against the Aurora officer who shot and killed Kilyn Lewis in 2024 said they are moving into yet another phase of the marathon protests and “gifting the (council) chambers back” to the city council. 

For more than a year, activists have appeared and disrupted nearly every city council meeting and filled the public speaking time for un-related agenda items. Meanwhile, some city lawmakers have fought back with often spiteful Facebook posts, and city council members have imposed strict changes to their public listening sessions and even abandoned meeting in person for the foreseeable future in an effort to push back against the regular city council meeting disruptions.

That effort inspired a First Amendment lawsuit by the leader of the protesters, who now says the group is stepping back to focus on the upcoming city council election. 

The “public invited to be heard” listening session that for decades has been scheduled for the beginning of Aurora City Council meetings has drastically changed over the last year, after ongoing disruptions from protest leader MiDianShofner and others have made demands related to the Lewis shooting. Lewis was an unarmed Black man fatally shot by an Aurora SWAT officer during his arrest in May 2024. Lewis was accused of a Denver shooting earlier that month.

The family recently filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the city after area prosecutors declined to file charges against the officer, and an internal and outside investigation determined the shooting was justified.

The public listening sessions, which have been the primary source of consternation among city lawmakers as Lewis protesters have dominated the events, have been shortened, made virtual, canceled, restarted and are no longer broadcast as is the rest of the city council meeting. They have also been taken off the agenda and made separate from the formal meeting in an effort to control the Lewis protesters.

The cancellation prompted Shofner to pursue a First Amendment lawsuit against the City of Aurora, arguing that the city singled her out and aimed to silence her First Amendment rights by cancelling the public comment portion of the council’s bi-weekly meetings.

An attempt to persuade a local district court judge to force the City of Aurora to reinstate the original public listening session rules was denied last week, resulting in a new wave of city council meeting disruptions.

“They suffered a loss in court on Monday,” City Attorney Pete Schulte said. 

Shofner said it was still a win for her because the judge ruled against their request for a preliminary injunction against the city before jury trial, but did not dismiss the preliminary injunction completely. A future hearing on whether the city infringed on Shofner’s First Amendment rights is slated for Nov. 18. 

For now, Shofner and other members of the Lewis protest group say they’re turning their attention to the November City Council Election.

Last week, when Shofner, Auon’tai Anderson and Hashim Coates spoke during each unrelated agenda topic during public hearings, they pointed out that they were contriving their remarks to spell out the words “vote them out.” 

“O, our advocacy has always been about equity in every public forum,” Shofner said. “U, under the guidance of the people we serve, we are shifting our work to the election ahead, building our presence here for now, but not our…”

Mayor Mike Coffman interrupted the stunt and said, “Warning.”

“T, the work we do is always centered around the community,” Shofner said. “Because of that, we are announcing that we will be gifting the Aurora City Chambers back for now, and we are doing this on our terms, not yours…”

The line was cut because she was going off topic.

Anderson and Coates said similar things when they spoke. Shofner later told the Sentinel that they were all cut off before they could finish saying that they were going to move on to “phase three” of Lewis protests by directing efforts to upset sitting council members who are up for election. 

At the end of each talking point, earlier in the meeting, they would refer to Councilmembers Danielle Jurinsky, Steve Sundberg and Amsalu Kassaw running as incumbents for this year’s election, saying they should be voted out. 

This week, the recording from the public listening session, which was previously only accessible to those who called in and listened live, was released on the Aurora Channel YouTube, making it the first time the session has been broadcast since the strict rules were set in place. 

After the meeting, Mayor Mike Coffman posted on his Facebook account about Schofner and her disruptions, not including information she relayed that she would work on the election instead of speaking at meetings.

“Last night was more of the same with the continued harassment and disruptions of our council meeting led by Midian Shofner,” Coffman said in the social media post. “Who owns ‘8PM Consulting for Humanity,’ and makes a living out of shaking down government officials at taxpayers’ expense.”

Schofner said she started the company in 2020. She has more recently been running the company, the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, where she demands justice for the families of young Black men who were killed by police officers. 

8PM Consulting states that it is a consulting firm that offers programming to promote social justice, equity and combats racism. 

Coffman said that Shofner’s “harassment” is an effort to shake down Aurora’s taxpayers.

The family of Lewis have sued the city of Aurora for unspecified damages in a wrongful death lawsuit, but Shofner is not named in the lawsuit, and her actions in the meeting last week were all about the election.

“However, Shofner has run into a wall, and I’m proud to say that I am that wall,” he said. “No matter how much she and her followers try to harass and intimidate me, she will never match the drill sergeants that terrorized me during my introductions to both the U.S. Army and the Marine Corps.”

As of now, “public invited to be heard” is still on a virtual, call-in basis, lasting from 6 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. and allowing speakers only two minutes to speak. The number to listen to or call in is 855-695-3475. Callers press *3 to reach the operator, and the public call-in line opens at 5:30 p.m. on the day of the city council m