AURORA | After 13 months as interim chief of Aurora’s Police Department, Art Acevedo announced this week that he is stepping down to spend time with his family in Texas.
“I can’t be without my boy, and I can’t move him right now, so I have to get home to him, because I want to be judged as a father, and family has to come first,” Acevedo said, tearing up, during a Jan. 16 news conference. “I leave a piece of my heart with Aurora.”
Acevedo was named interim chief in December 2022, after the city came up emptyhanded in a national search for candidates to replace fired former chief Vanessa Wilson.
Heather Morris — who Acevedo appointed as interim deputy chief last year, after the two previously worked alongside each other in the Houston and Miami police departments — will lead the chronically leaderless department on an interim basis starting Jan. 22.
Under Acevedo’s tenure, the department made strides toward complying with the consent decree reform agreement signed by the city and the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, which was created to address patterns of excessively violent, racist policing that were alleged in a state investigation prompted by the death of Elijah McClain.
During the Jan. 16 news conference, Acevedo insisted the city and the Aurora Police Department had not ducked accountability when faced with community outrage over McClain’s death, even though Acevedo said officers were suspicious of the goals of the consent decree when he arrived.
“I think in the last 13 months, our officers and our staff have realized it’s been a tremendous blessing for them, and it has been a tremendous opportunity, and they’ve really embraced it,” he said. “This city did not run away from responsibility. This department did not run away from it. We embraced it.”
While Acevedo butted heads city’s police unions, remarking at a news conference last week that “if you listen to the union rep, no officer has ever done anything wrong,” he said Jan. 16 that his decision to leave was “100% my decision” and was not influenced by pressure from union representatives.
“They don’t speak for the whole force,” Acevedo said. “I thought I would be here (for) two to three years, but I miss my kid.”
City Manager Jason Batchelor said Morris was chosen to serve as interim chief in the department to preserve “continuity of leadership.” He and Mayor Mike Coffman both lauded Acevedo’s efforts to fulfill the terms of the consent decree and fight crime.
“It’s a sad day for the City of Aurora,” Coffman said. “I understand family matters, family issues, and I respect that. It is a loss to the city, but nonetheless, we’re grateful for his time here.”
When asked about the future of the chief’s position, Acevedo praised Morris and said the city would be “better off with going with who you have and what you know than who you don’t have and what you don’t know.”
Acevedo’s tenure as chief wasn’t without controversy — last year, the department failed to meet all of the deadlines included in the consent, and Acevedo came under fire from activists for his response to the June shooting of Jor’Dell Richardson, a 14-year-old Black boy, by a police officer.
Acevedo initially reported that Richardson had a firearm when he was shot by police in June 2022 and took more than a week to clarify publicly that the teen had a pellet gun resembling a firearm instead.
“The Richardson family has been calling for Chief Acevedo’s resignation ever since he misled them and the community,” Richardson family attorney Qusair Mohamedbhai said Jan. 16. “We hope that Aurora will learn from its many mistakes concerning who they hire for their police chief and find the community leader that Aurora deserves.”
Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, later said she believed Acevedo’s departure was spurred by the desire to spend more time with his children as well as frustration among police officers over how Acevedo was choosing to allocate the police department’s resources.
Jurinsky said officers perceived Acevedo as lacking experience leading departments of Aurora’s size and mentioned the chief’s past experience leading larger departments in Austin, Houston and Miami.
She said Acevedo’s insistence on acquiring a helicopter for the department and sending police officers to staff the Democratic National Convention led officers to question why Acevedo was committing the department’s limited manpower and resources to priorities that were either out of Aurora’s reach financially or unrelated to day-to-day enforcement.
“I just think ultimately we’re probably not a big enough department for him, for what he wants to do,” Jurinsky said. “We don’t have the police budget he wants.”
Despite this, Jurinsky said the chief had not faced the same criticisms from the city’s police unions for his implementation of the consent decree that Wilson faced for her approach to police reform.
“Art’s approach to the consent decree was like, ‘Let’s look at this, and maybe we can do this better,’” Jurinsky said. “And in a lot of circumstances, we found some things that we could do better. Vanessa’s approach was just, ‘If you do anything, you’re fired.’”
Reflecting on Acevedo’s tenure, Jurinsky said the chief brought a “positive attitude” and “new ideas” to the department but that it was time for Acevedo to return to his family.
Batchelor said the city would decide how to proceed in terms of the future leadership of the police department in the coming weeks.
It’s disappointing but not surprising that Chief Acevedo has decided to spend more time with his family, a euphemism for “I’ve had enough of Aurora”. Also not surprising that Danielle Jurinsky is glad to see him go. Now, under the supervision of our new, more than ever, Republican city council, we can go back to the hooliganism that preceded Vanessa Wilson.
As an only 19 year resident of Aurora, I keep hoping that our city will evolve into a pride-filled, community that is ready to take on real world challenges with solid and realistic expectations of departments like that of the police. I’ll keep hoping but I’m not likely to bet much of the farm.
It’s disappointing but not surprising that Chief Acevedo has decided to spend more time with his family, a euphemism for “I’ve had enough of Aurora”. Also not surprising that Danielle Jurinsky is glad to see him go. Now, under the supervision of our new, more than ever, Republican city council, we can go back to the hooliganism that preceded Vanessa Wilson. As an only 19 year resident of Aurora, I keep hoping that our city will evolve into a pride-filled, community that is ready to take on real world challenges with solid and realistic expectations of departments like that of the police. I’ll keep hoping but I’m not likely to bet much of the farm.
Thank you, Chief Acevedo, for steering the police department in the right direction and leaving it in much better shape than it was when you arrived.
Right! Here’s a Chief that sued another department. And here comes the same old bullshit- need time to be with family. Well, does that mean you didn’t family time over the past 13 months?
This guy was just another “king Dan Oates” puppet out of south Florida via Houston. Keep your eye on his next appointment after he gets his fill of “family time”. I say good bye and good riddance! Why does Aurora keep hiring these stale problematic has
beens, recommended by former problem makers themselves?
So- the city thinks they need a helicopter – Really. Meantime, you can’t even get police reports anymore in a reasonable time because of a back log and told the city faces a shortage of workers in clerical positions. Funding -you know.
“Batchelor said the city would decide how to proceed in terms of the future leadership of the police department in the coming weeks”.
The answer-we will hire an executive employment agency they will present us with a half a dozen folks from around the country.
The real reason the chief is not staying on — there is more going on here with the story than meets the eye.
Need to bring back Wilson. She was far better than this lacky for Coffman. This is a democratic City and we need a democratic police chief. I’m tired of these right Wingers in there. I have a home and a business and Aurora does not represent me anymore
Aurora’s fourth police chief in five years signs out with a weeks notice. Certainly proved as one quick honeymoon – Now Get Out. Something sounds fishy.
Except for the high wage, why would anyone want to come to Aurora to be a police chief? All of you Aurora citizens who care already know all the baggage the Chief must handle.
The biggest in my opinion is the small, outspoken DEI community but, larger than most in Colorado, that will use any small situation to gain power by using the black radical individuals within our City. Not to mention this Sentinel blog as their sounding board. Any new Chief will not be able to handle this situation. Unless, of course, we hire a black radical chief.
So a Chief Metz type. As I recall that did not work out real well.