AURORA | City lawmakers are back meeting in public and in person. Sort of. Some of them.
Saying they want to return to a community-involved city council meeting, compared to the virtual meetings held over the past few months, three city council members decided to take the meeting back to the people Monday night.
“Power lies with the community,” Councilmember Ruben Medina said. “You can get rid of me, but they can’t get rid of all of you if you come together.”
The in-person platform, created by council members Crystal Murillo, Alison Coombs, and Medina, held the meeting at a local elementary school gymnasium. It was in response to the majority of city council members voting to hold virtual meetings until a wrongful death lawsuit linked to an Aurora officer-involved shooting is complete, which could take years.
All three of the city lawmakers who pushed back against the virtual meeting mandate are Democrats. The rest of the city council is composed of two unaffiliated lawmakers six Republicans.
Approximately 15 to 20 people attended, with some listening for specific items to come up on the agenda, others taking part in the community conversations around them, and a few waiting their turn to enter the virtual meeting to submit their public comments.
There were baked goods being handed out, and a few people went to get dinner together after. It gave the impression of a small-town city council meeting.
Over the past year and a half, protesters and family members of Lewis attended, protested and often disrupted council meetings to demand city and district attorney action in the 2023 death of Kilyn Lewis, who was fatally shot by an Aurora officer during his arrest as a suspect in a shooting in Denver.
In May, the one-year anniversary of Lewis’ death, the family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Aurora. City council members, in an effort headed by Danielle Jurinsky, decided they would make all city council meetings virtual until the lawsuit was complete, after the family and other activists spent the majority of the year protesting and disrupting in different ways during the meetings.
The alternative meeting format in the gym on Monday offered a space to residents whose lives have been directly affected by police violence.
“This is about community voice,” MiDian Shofner, a local activist for police reform and accountability, said. “We have someone here who has been impacted tragically by the police. That voice should be a priority.”
There were three people at the meeting who were linked to someone being shot and killed by an Aurora Police officer, including Kiawa Lewis, Kilyn’s brother.
Also among those who spoke Monday was Anna Harris, the partner of Korey Dillard, who was fatally shot Oct. 3, 2024 by Aurora police after people called the police on him for walking around a northwest Aurora apartment with an airsoft gun that looked like an AK-47. Harris spoke about the night police came to their home, and she said they escalated a domestic dispute into what she called “murder on the porch.”
“They told the public a story that wasn’t true,” Harris said. “Research shows pay and recruitment alone won’t solve our turnover problem. Culture, fairness and accountability matter most. The people of Aurora have offered this solution; hold officers accountable, fire and jail the bad ones, train, arrest and enforce that training. Korey should still be here.”
Last year, after Dillard died, the police department described him as homeless and estranged from Harris. They also stated that Harris claimed she was afraid of Dillard in her police statement, which she later denied.
She said that Dillard, her son and she all lived together, and that Dillard spent some of his free time working on a hobby van the family would use for traveling. At a press conference after the shooting, police said that Dillard had been living in the van. The van was parked in their apartment parking lot. Dillard grabbed his toy gun from the van after a friend and he got into a fight to get the friend to leave the property, according to Harris and security footage obtained from Aurora Police.
While grabbing the toy gun, he locked his keys in the van. Many people called the police, including the friend he had fought with, and said Dillard was pacing in the parking lot with a gun, which is also seen in the footage from security cameras and neighbors.
Dillard was fatally shot on what Harris considered the front porch of their apartment complex while talking to their neighbor, as seen in the footage. Harris said the neighbor was a friend of theirs, and speculated that Dillard was probably asking her to let him in.
Harris invited the public and city leaders to a candlelight vigil marking the one-year anniversary of Dillard’s death at Elm Grove Park.
Christian Caldwell, a cousin of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield, also spoke at the meeting on Monday. Belt-Stubblefield was recently fatally shot a few weeks ago after an officer attempted to pull him over for a traffic violation, and the encounter turned into a car crash and an aggressive exchange between Belt-Stubblefield and the officer.
“I just ask that we get justice for these Black men who have been slain in our city,” Caldwell said. “It is despicable. It’s horrible. As a resident for 34 years, it’s time for a change.”
Murillo talked about the longstanding tensions between the public and the current city council majority over rules for participation at official meetings. She said that the decision to go virtual was “direct retaliation” against residents who protested or spoke critically during public comment.
The meeting originally had two public comment sessions, but it was reduced to one, then the hours were cut from two to one, and now it is 30 minutes, Murillo said.
“This is not normal,” Murillo said. “We should not normalize that those in positions of power retaliate against community members for being mad, for being hurt, for holding people accountable, for holding us accountable, for the actions that happen and the things that happen in our city.”
Coombs said the virtual-only format of recent council meetings has eroded trust and community building.
“This space is about giving the community the opportunity to access your representatives,” Coombs said. “And also to give you the space to connect with each other, because when we have you only calling us up on the phone, we don’t see each other’s faces, and I think it’s important that you’ll be able to do that.”
At the end of the meeting, the three council members allowed the public to ask them questions, with one member leaving at a time to avoid a quorum and a potential violation of open meeting laws, which require notification.
“There’s nothing I can say that’s going to bring these family members back, and nothing that’s going to ever take that pain away,” Coombs said. “But when our police chief frames victims as criminals, it undermines due process. We owe our community better.”
Police Chief Todd Chamberlain has framed a series of press conferences after officer-involved shootings as opportunities for police to be transparent about the fatal shootings, offering some detail and video recordings in advance of actual outside investigations of the incidents.
Community members and people streaming the live meeting at the school were able to ask questions to the council members. They asked how residents can more meaningfully engage with the federally mandated consent decree, which requires the Aurora Police Department to reform after findings of racially biased policing and excessive force.
Coombs said the group of council members will continue to hold meetings in various public spaces throughout the city and invite the public to join them. The next meeting place has not been announced yet.
Don’t be fooled, Aurora citizens. These three are not as the Sentinel Blog states, democrat’s, except as they signed on voter records. They are socialists who want to create chaos whenever they can. It appears they are trying to create a sounding board for those radicals that have interrupted City government for well over a year and have the Sentinel Blog to help advertise the chaos they are creating.
Crystal, the Child Legislator, is only going to be around for a few months so is no longer anyone that matters for Aurora. We’ll have to wait two more years to eliminate Coombs. Ward III has the ability to eliminate Medina this election. Let’s hope this happens. If so, then we’ll only have Coombs to create havoc for we citizens of Aurora by using her position on the City Council.
It is simply more performative stunts from the Leftists on the Counsel. They know they can’t enact any legislation in this capacity so they create a stunt to give the appearance of caring. As evidenced by the miniscule attendance, most saw through the self-serving stage show.
I say good for them. They put forth the effort on behalf of their constituents. Name calling is just distracting and should be ignored.
Name calling is imperative when someone is purposely creating problems for the citizens of Aurora. The only citizens they represent are far left wing socialist democrats. Wake up Kudo.
Thank-you Council Members Murillo, Medina and Coombs. Thanks for representing your constituents and our community. I’m looking forward to the next one.
As for being socialists??…. thanks for supporting our fire fighters, police officers, library staffers and so on
You are so ideologically captured that you actually support the hollow, unproductive efforts of these members who ignore the rules of the body they serve. The virtual attendance policy wasn’t just for the Right leaning members, it applied to all members. You, like your heroes, seem to agree that the rules don’t apply.
Your warped Leftist views make you say demonizing the APD is “support”. More backwards views from the backwards Left.
They do not represent the police officers, just ask them. You, too, SusanG, need to figure out who their constituents happen to be. Socialists and the Sentinel Blog.
More performative nonsense from the hateful Leftists on the Counsel. This is nothing more than an example of the Left putting themselves above the rules and executing a self-serving performance that has no benefit. The ignore the basis for the virtual meetings, IE disruptive protests that ruin the City’s democratic process. The Left is a disease that seeks to disrupt because they are impotent. The Left can’t win in the free marketplace of ideas so they can only lash out, much like a wounded animal.
Geez, Juan. I like the fact that these three council members are willing to meet in person. This is as it should be. When I see words like “hateful” “a disease” “impotent” “wounded animal,” I think the person writing it has no real points of discussion and just wants to spew hate.Hate is used by small people who feel unheard, who think by hating others it will make them feel big and strong and important. I hope it works for you.
Allowing citizens to voice their concerns is evil? Juan and Dick want to shut anyone up who doesn’t agree with their points of view? Sounds like fascists to me. We still have a right to speak up and our elected officials are required to listen if they want to remain in their positions. Yes, democracy is messy but I believe it is what has made this country a good place to live.
I live walking distance from Paris Elementary. I am a semi-regular attender of Crystal’s town halls, and occasionally exchange messages with the other two councilors.
I was never told this was happening. I was never brought in the loop. I expect that attendance was carefully curated to only include vocal members who felt shut out from the new policy. This feels like an invite-only kind of affair.
I might not have attended if I knew. But I know I don’t feel good being excluded from a “public” meeting.