Aurora city manager rebukes protester demands to fire Police Chief Chamberlain

AURORA | A group of community activists dominated Monday’s City Council meeting for nearly five hours, mostly demanding the firing of the city’s police chief — and then continued in the city hall lobby until almost 3 a.m. Tuesday.

After listening to hours of testimony, City Manager Jason Batchelor told the group that while their feedback would be considered, he backs Chief Todd Chamberlain and has no intentions to fire him because he believes Chamberlain is on the right track.

“On the balance of things, I think he has things he can work on, but I think he’s done good work in the department,” Batchelor said. “The department is doing well, crime is down, morale is up, retention is up. We are meeting the requirements of the consent decree. So he has placed the department on a different trajectory.”

The conversation happened immediately following the regular city council meeting, where public comment largely called on the city to fire Chamberlain, with Batchelor, Mayor Pro Tem Alison Coombs and Councilmember Rob Andrews joining the activists in the lobby. 

The group started with about 20 people and dwindled down to three, along with the three city officials and the Sentinel, until an impasse was reached around 2:30 a.m.

Following the end of the discussion, the organizer of the sit-in, MiDian Shofner of the Epitome of Black Excellence, was cited for municipal trespassing after refusing to leave the building. No other citations were issued. 

Over the roughly four-hour long back and forth, Shofner went through a 29-page letter outlining numerous complaints about Chamberlain, mostly focused on the officer-involved shootings under his watch, as well as concerns with transparency, accountability, accuracy and a lack of engagement with the community. 

“Whether the obstacle is unwillingness or inability, the resulting concern is the same — a failure to demonstrate the leadership competencies required of Aurora’s chief of police,” Shofner said. “The community cannot reasonably be expected to accept an indefinite cycle in which concerns are raised, opportunities for improvement are presumed to have been provided and the same concerns continue without meaningful resolution.”

Batchelor, Coombs and Andrews listened, engaged and took notes, with Batchelor telling the group that he wants to continue to have conversations and hear feedback, but also highlighting public safety improvements, like declining crime and increased public satisfaction.

Under the city charter, the city manager is responsible for hiring and firing the chief of police and the city council ratifies the decision. The police chief reports to the deputy city manager, under current city structure. Council members are prohibited from lobbying for the hiring and firing of the police chief, which Coombs reiterated at the meeting. 

Coombs did say that she disagrees with Batchelor’s positive assessment of the chief’s performance, but didn’t comment on whether he should stay in the job.

“I do think there’s a conversation to be had about the charter and about what role can we play in accountability even within those confines,” Coombs said.

A change to the charter would require voter approval. The city is also facing litigation from a past police chief, Vanessa Wilson, who sued for wrongful termination and argues that her firing was the result of being a target of former conservative council members who opposed her efforts to reform the department. That lawsuit is ongoing.

MiDian’s letter acknowledged Wilson’s lawsuit but said it shouldn’t prevent the city from firing Chamberlain over leadership concerns because the city maintains the responsibility to hold its executives accountable.

Chamberlain was hired as police chief in 2024 and protests started soon after, with activists taking issue with what they called a “backdoor” hiring process. 

During Chamberlain’s tenure, there have been multiple fatal officer-involved shootings, including the deaths of Kory Dillard, Rajon Belt-Stubblefield and Rashaud Johnson. The officer who killed Belt-Stubblefield, Matthew Neely, is facing charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter after being indicted by a grand jury.

There has been one officer-involved shooting so far this year, where an officer shot and killed a man who was attacking him with a knife during a mental health crisis. 

Many of the comments focused on Chamberlain’s rhetoric, including when describing some of the officer-involved shootings. Shofner and others said Chamberlain has been careless, including sharing incorrect information and not considering the emotions of grieving families.

A recent example cited by the group was Chamberlain’s response to their silent protest at an Oct. 8 town hall hosted by Arapahoe County Commissioner Rhonda Fields, where they said he confronted them and made inappropriate allegations about Kilyn Lewis. Lewis was killed by Aurora police in 2024 before Chamberlain became chief and his family is currently suing the city over his death. 

“A public safety executive should possess the judgment to recognize when his words may intensify a situation,” Shofner said. “The obligation to exercise that judgment becomes even more important when families affected by police violence are present.”

Another example in the 29-page letter points to comments Chamberlain made about people being detained at the ICE facility in Aurora, where he claimed a majority of them had criminal backgrounds. However, data from ICE at the time showed roughly 25% of the people at the facility had criminal charges of some kind.

The group emphasized that they feel Chamberlain is too defensive in response to criticisms and they don’t trust him to share accurate and opinion-free information.

Batchelor said improvements can be made in police communications, but pushed back on the idea that replacing Chamberlain would solve everything. He said the complaints included in the letter weren’t “enough at first blush” to support firing Chamberlain. 

Aurora has been under a state mandated consent decree since 2021, which oversees policy and training changes in the public safety departments, including police and fire, to address a history of racial bias and excessive force.

The city is nearing the end of its consent decree monitoring period and a report from earlier this year shows the departments are substantially compliant with most of the mandates. Crime rates have also declined this year.

The city is also in the process of hiring a manager for its newly created Office of Public Safety Accountability, which will be an independent public safety monitoring agency with community engagement duties.

Batchelor committed not only to continuing conversations, but also to ensuring that public engagement is part of the process in the future whenever a new chief is hired.

“The chief won’t be the chief forever and so when he leaves, whether that’s next week, next month or next year, I can commit that the hiring process for his successor will be very different and it will include public input,” he said. 

Under Chamberlain’s employment contract, if the city fires him for any reason other than just cause, he is entitled to six months of severance pay. 

On Tuesday, Shofner said that while the conversation didn’t result in their preferred outcome, they would “not stop demanding the changes we need to ensure that every resident of Aurora feels safe.”