AURORA | A prominent and regular spokesperson for a group seeking legal action against an Aurora police officer who fatally shot a Black man during his arrest last year has filed a lawsuit against the city, saying recent council actions have robbed her of rights to free speech.
“For far too long, Aurora’s City Council has employed tactics of erasure and demonization to suppress those who dare to speak out, to demand justice and to envision accountability as something more than rhetoric,” Midian Shofner said in a statement. “That era must come to an end.”
For months, Schofner has appeared at city council meetings, demanding the city fire Aurora SWAT officer Michael Dieck, who fatally shot Kilyn Lewis during his arrest at an Aurora apartment last year.
An outside police investigative team and a former district attorney both said that Dieck’s actions were not criminal in shooting Lewis. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said Dieck’s actions did not violate APD policy.
The lawsuit, filed by the civil rights law firm Newman McNulty, aims to overturn a new ban on the ability of the public to address city council members at meetings. The lawsuit includes a motion for a preliminary injunction to restore that public comment immediately, according to the statement sent by the firm.
Shofner alleges the ban is a direct retaliation for her activism.
City Attorney Pete Schulte said that he had not been served or notified about the lawsuit. City, state and federal offices and courts were closed Thursday in honor of Juneteenth.
“We can’t comment on litigation we haven’t seen,” Schulte said. “But if there is a lawsuit, the city will strongly defend it.”
It’s unclear when and which court would hear Shofner’s request for a restraining order against the city, which could impact a meeting scheduled for Monday.
“The architects of the ban on public comment, specifically Danielle Jurinsky and Mike Coffman, are thin-skinned hypocrites who are the first to cry, ‘I’ve been cancelled’ when someone calls them out for their vile and baseless political attacks, but waste no time engaging in actual censorship by using their government authority to retaliate against Black women speaking truth to power,” lawyer Andy McNulty said in a statement.
The lawsuit follows the city council’s June 9 vote to eliminate public comment at council meetings, and in-person meetings entirely, until a separate wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Lewis’ family is resolved. The city council’s decision to ban public comment until the lawsuit is resolved could mean years without allowing public comment during city council meetings.
“Aurora, Colorado, has earned a reputation for persistently violating its citizens’ civil rights with one of the most brutal and racist police forces in the country,” lawyer Mari Newman said in the statement. “Aurora is now steadily earning a reputation for violating its citizens’ constitutional rights in another way: silencing members of the community who demand better.”
Shofner and others have continued to press for what they say has been a lack of accountability following the death of Lewis by an Aurora officer for more than a year, with Lewis’s anniversary of his death May 23. Shofner’s attorneys said the measure silences voices seeking justice and accountability.
“The ban on public comment is nothing more than the snowflakes on Aurora City Council shutting down important political discourse because they don’t like being criticized,” McNulty said in the statement.
After the vote by council, Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman wrote in a post on Facebook defending the new rule, which included a photo of Shofner speaking at a previous meeting. Her attorneys allege that his post and the ban on public comment target her right to free speech.
“These direct admissions that public comment was eliminated in order to prevent Ms. Shofner and others from continuing to advocate for accountability for the APD’s killing of Mr. Lewis are very clearly constitutionally repugnant,” the firm wrote in the statement. “This targeting of certain viewpoints and silencing of the community violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the free speech and petitioning clauses of the Colorado Constitution.”
In the lawsuit, Shofner is seeking an end to the public comment ban, a formal apology, policy reforms, mandatory training for officials, compensatory and punitive damages, attorney’s fees and all other legal costs.
“This lawsuit is an opportunity for tangible change,” Shofner said in a statement. “It is a declaration for every voice that has been silenced and every truth buried under the weight of intimidation and the unchecked abuse of governmental power.”
The complaints said that Jurinsky openly stated the ban was meant to silence critics of the Aurora Police Department and that she specifically said that if the lawsuit was dismissed, “there is nothing left to discuss and there is no reason for (the justice for Lewis advocates) to come back.”
Jurinsky said she was not surprised to hear about the lawsuit, but it was news to her. She said she thinks it all should be handled in court.
Although no state or federal law requires a governing body to hold a public comment session during their meeting, except for public hearings for specific agenda items, “the First Amendment prohibits targeting speech, retaliating against particular people because they are saying things the government doesn’t like, or shutting down particular groups or messages,” McNulty said.
Sorry, after the first 100 times of screeching “gib us dat,” it becomes redundant. You’re not getting a city paycheck on this one, and there’s no “truth to power” being employed here, not matter how lame the pretense.
The silencing of public comment in Aurora is not just a procedural change — it’s a troubling shift away from transparency and accountability. As a resident, I see this lawsuit as a response to a deeper pattern: officials limiting public access and engagement when community members speak hard truths.
Banning public input during council meetings — especially following sustained calls for justice — sends the message that only certain voices are welcome in civic life. That’s not democracy. Free speech isn’t supposed to be comfortable, and it certainly shouldn’t be conditional. This ban must be overturned, and Aurora’s leaders should recommit to listening to the people they were elected to serve.
“The silencing of public comment in Aurora is not just a procedural change — it’s a troubling shift away from transparency and accountability.”
No, it’s being done because your side thinks you can jawbone everyone into doing what you want. A city of 400K people has other responsibilities to conduct.
The world doesn’t revolve around you people and your “demands,” but you’re too pampered by media and institutional indulgence, and as a result too intellectually and emotionally stunted to realize that.
Okay, but what alternative is there. Are they just suspposed to let someone harp on something ad nauseum? At what point does that start to infringe upon the rights of those trying to conduct business at these meetings. If those who were protesting were even remotely concerned with Time, Place, Manner restrictions on free speech, they would have already known the city has the right to do this. It’s not as if they’re protesting something that was swept under the rug, this was investigated nine ways from Sunday. Tragedy, yes? Opportunity to look at policing? Sure. Massive coverup, nope.
What appears to be at stake here is the believed right for left-wing extremists to bully others into submission.
HAHAHAHA Midian Shofner! Good luck! The council didn’t change their rules because of your “speech.” They did it because you intentionally disrupted their council meetings on a regular basis. You don’t get to have your cake and eat it too. I hope the City wins attorneys fees against you so you have to pay! Your 15 minutes are up (and yes, we remember you’re a convicted child abuser as well!)!
The First Amendment is not without restriction. Time, Place and Manner restrictions are 100 percent appropriate. This person is simply going to throw a temper tantrum until he gets his way. And that should not happen. Instead of him suing them, why doesn’t the city sue him for interfering with lawful government operations resulting in other residents rights being infringed upon. Then when they win, he can go to jail every time for disorderly conduct.