The problem Aurora can’t get past was made clear this week with controversy created in trying to adopt a policy dictating how city lawmakers should behave when they have to confront the public after news of an officer-involved shooting.
One side of the city council scowlingly insists that offering condolences to friends and family members of someone killed by an Aurora police officer during some kind of interaction with police sends the wrong message and is essentially “anti-police.”
The other side of the city council grimacingly insists that elected leaders have a duty to show sympathy and remorse for the tragic loss of life and explain the legal constraints about what they can and can’t do about it.
Resolving those differences isn’t the problem. The shootings are the problem.
Four years after the state government investigated Aurora police and determined the city has a problem because the department has for years exhibited patterns and practices of using excessive force, especially against people of color, Aurora still suffers from the same serious problem.
For almost two years — long after details of the death of Elijah McClain at the hands of Aurora police and rescuers revealed how serious the situation was — activists and family and friends of Kilyn Lewis have bi-weekly made loud, insistent appearances at city council meetings, making demands of things the city can and cannot do.
The nearly two-year public battle has keenly illustrated the very crux of Aurora’s problem, and how city lawmakers during the past four years were mostly to blame for the seemingly endless animosity between lawmakers and protesters.
Even though the political makeup and majority of the city council changed after the Nov. 4 Election, there are still a handful of city lawmakers who believe that the last six or so Aurora police shootings were warranted, or “justified.”
They absolutely were not.
It doesn’t mean that the officer who shot Kilyn Lewis or others acted outside the law when they fatally shot men while confronting them and trying to arrest them. It means that Aurora police too often finds itself in situations where police officers feel like they have no option but to fire guns at suspects.
Police experts across the nation have made clear to the Sentinel during years of stories and investigations that poor training, poor planning and poor execution are mostly to blame for putting police in situations where a lethal shot is the only solution to their law enforcement problem.
In the case of Lewis, an entire SWAT unit surveilled their suspect with Denver Police for days before orchestrating and moving in for his arrest. He was confronted outside of his car in an apartment parking lot during a surprise encounter with a cell phone raised over his head, mistaken to be a gun by one officer, who fatally shot Lewis.
Lewis was being sought by Denver police in connection with the shooting of a homeless man.
Similarly, Rajon Belt-Stubblefield was shot and killed during his arrest after a car crash he caused. When approached by a police officer, he became confrontational with the officer and when the situation escalated, the officer pulled his gun and fatally shot him.
In the case of the shooting death of Rashaud Johnson at an airport parking lot in 2025, police didn’t respond for hours to requests from employees to investigate a man wandering around the cars, who clearly was having a mental crisis. After a lengthy confrontation, the single officer sent to the call fired on Johnson and killed him.
An easy legal argument can be made to shield the officers in each of these cases from criminal prosecution. But the longstanding argument about Aurora police making lethal mistakes in answering calls and encountering people, especially Black men, is undeniable.
While each of these slain men may have deserved to be held accountable for whatever they were accused of, their crimes, misdeeds or psychiatric problems did not warrant the death penalty. Under the very constraints of the Constitution and our legal system, police are not allowed to impose it — under any circumstances.
The Aurora City Council resolution codifying how lawmakers should respond to future officer-involved shootings appears to offer clarity and comfort — more to city officials than to those linked to the shootings themselves.
There is no harm in the clarity, transparency and humanity linked to this measure, but as critics have pointed out, this does nothing to solve a problem that Aurora has made progress in addressing, but has not yet overcome.
Just over a month ago, Aurora police fatally shot a Black man having a mental crisis, long after it became absolutely clear the man had previously suffered from serious mental problems and was in the midst of a crisis and armed with a knife. Somehow, and the public has not been informed, an officer and police dog were situated so that the suspect was able to quickly reach the officer, attack him with a knife and stab him in the head.
Police fatally shot the man.
Police inside the department, reaching out to the Sentinel, have questioned how the intervention played out and why the relatively slow-moving developments in the call led to an unprotected officer in such a vulnerable situation.
These same questions keep arising nearly each time Aurora police fatally shoot someone they encounter.
Aurora Councilmember Stephanie Hancock, who voted against the condolence measure, on Monday coldly told critics in the audience, including the mother of Lewis, that she opposed the proposition because it’s just never enough for the families and activists of those killed by police. “When is it going to be enough?” Hancock remarked.
The answer is clear. When a truly independent, non-political, oversight mechanism can enforce laws, rules and regulations that provide accountability of the Aurora police department, that will be enough.
The police cannot police themselves. And the local district attorney, who by law can only determine if an officer broke a law during a shooting, cannot determine if a police-involved shooting was truly “justified.”
While some city lawmakers may be weary of this issue, it’s critical that the majority of city council members finish the job spelled out in the consent decree and reform this police department so that officers can enforce and uphold the laws, serve the public, and not the politics of the city council dais.
The Editorial Board is acting like those who were shot or fatally sedated were 2 year old children who were unable to understand their responsibilities when given directions or confronted by city police officers. They were not. These were fully grown adults who should be expected to understand the possible consequences of their non-compliant behavior. This is particularly true given the history of fatal interactions. When you force a physical confrontation with an officer, bad things can happen. My elders tell me that when they were growing up, all an officer had to do was shout “stop or I’ll shoot” and the individual was considered duly warned. Today, liberals expect that suspects should be given “one free shot” before an officer can respond in kind. They also seem to think that a “mental health crisis” somehow excuses assaultive behavior. Give me a break!
Monday morning quarterbacks are never wrong!
We need to STOP blaming the police like they are the root cause of young black men getting shot.
Who raised them to disrespect LE and the law?
Who failed to teach them right from wrong— and common sense?
Where are the fathers setting good examples?
Why are young men turning to gangs for a sense a family?
Who failed them as parents?
This call for even more police oversight does nothing to cure the root cause. Absolutely nothing.
The message shouldn’t be just about condolences. It should also SCREAM parental responsibility is what matters first and foremost because every life is precious.
Could there be any correlation between this and death by cops in Aurora means big settlements for black families? What the story doesn’t tell is the number of white victims of police shootings that resulted in large settlements in Aurora. How about the number of police officer involved shootings with victims that complied with authorities, that didn’t pull a phone in a way you would a gun or maybe put down a weapon? How about the protests and marches from a white victim being killed by a black APD officer? We don’t read about these things because they don’t exist.
DEI will be alive and well in Aurora as long as they keep settling every lawsuit. At the current rate, anyone regardless of skin color should able to win a wrongful death lawsuit against APD. It is expensive to fight lawsuits, but it may be more expensive to become an easy mark.
“a truly independent, non-political, ”
Yeah, we know what Diamond Dave and his allies mean by “truly independent, non-political.” It’s always the opposite.
Here’s a poem.
Change it Anyway
Changing systems can be frustrating, confusing
and time consuming;
Strive to change them anyway.
If you speak out for change,
they may accuse you of being self-serving;
Speak out anyway.
If you make changes that work,
they may pretend to be an ally or persist with attacks;
Make change anyway.
If you make honest attempts at change,
they may undermine your efforts;
Attempt change anyway.
What you spend years developing,
they may undo overnight;
Develop it anyway.
If your innovations are successful,
they may be jealous;
Innovate anyway.
The progress you achieve today,
they may forget tomorrow;
Make progress anyway.
Create positive change the best that you can,
and it may never be enough;
Give it the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and the person relying on the system; it was never between you and them anyway.
Michael Steinbruck
Interesting poem. I guess the point is that once one decides on a solution to a problem, one should stick with it despite conflicting evidence. Reminds me of a day my car wouldn’t start. So I replaced the battery, but it still wouldn’t start. So, not to be deterred, I replaced that battery with another and it still wouldn’t start. My neighbor told my that I might be mistaken about the cause of the problem, but I was determined to stay the course. I kept wondering how stores could sell so many bad batteries. But I was convinced and determined not to give up. I’d like to talk more but I’m off to a different store in search of another new battery.
Oops, the comment above didn’t print out as a poem and it’s too hard to read! Please delete this message and the poem above. Anyway, I just wanted to say, stay the course. The continual barrage of nasty comments is really tiring and demoralizing.
LOL, changing functional, high-trust communities into dysfunctional, low-trust communities doesn’t do anything other than demonstrate that you treat “change” as a cargo cult. Absolute Boomer-tier fantasias.
It’s adapted from a poem, “Do It Anyway,” that was posted on a wall of Mother Teresa’s home for children in Calcutta. Here’s a quote from that poem:
“If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.
Be kind anyway.”
Yes, we realize your team employs appeals to emotion to justify your lousy social engineering fetishes.