AURORA | Police, city and police reform officials told participants in a virtual town hall meeting Saturday the Aurora Police Department has shown substantial progress in meeting demands made by a state-imposed consent decree.
“What sets the department apart is that when mistakes do happen, they are acknowledged, they are understood and they are addressed,” Jeff Schlanger, the appointed outside monitor for the Aurora Consent Decree said.
Aurora city officials, the Independent Consent Decree Monitor and the Community Advisory Council held the town hall meeting Saturday to update residents on progress made during Reporting Period 8 of the consent decree.
The decree, imposed by Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in 2021, followed investigations into repeated incidents of excessive use of force and discrimination by Aurora police, particularly against people of color. Triggered in part by the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, who died at the hands of police and rescuers after being stopped, unarmed, the decree mandates broad reforms in training, accountability, use-of-force policies, data systems and community engagement.
“My office continues to work closely with the consent decree monitor and the city, and while I am pleased that Aurora continues to make incremental progress on the consent decrees’ mandates, more progress must be made,” General Attorney Phil Weiser told the Sentinel in April, when the most current report was made public. “The monitor has repeatedly highlighted concerns about APD’s data collection and reporting systems and lack of progress in implementing updated data systems. The consent decree mandates can’t be satisfied without APD making more progress on these essential systems.”
The decree is overseen by IntegrAssure, a paid contractor that works alongside city staff and public safety leaders to monitor and ensure progress. Aurora has paid IntegrAssure more than $3.1 million as of January.
IntegrAssure’s Schlanger, who oversees and coordinates most of the Aurora reform goals, reviews and helps guide projects such as training and developing new police policies.
According to Chief Todd Chamberlain, The Aurora Police Department’s use of force complaints and reports have been trending down, noting a 29% drop in all use-of-force incidents.
Officer-involved shootings, however, have increased some, with two this year, and zero this time last year, Chamberlain said. There were five officer-involved shootings in Aurora last year, and Chamberlain said he hopes to make that number fewer this year.
“We are not stepping away from crime fighting, and we are not stepping away from proactive policing,” Chamberlain said “We are changing, modifying policies, so that our officers are being proactive, so that we aren’t increasing the number of victims, so that we are also ensuring that individuals are not put in harm’s way.”
During the town hall meeting Saturday, Schlanger said that one of many instances that exemplifies how the department differs from five years ago is how the department evaluates use-of-force situations.
Instead of focusing only on the moment the incident occurred, the commission now asks how the department or officer got to that point, and what could be done differently to achieve a better result, he said.
“That now is a question that is asked at every force review board for every case that is being reviewed, and that is really the essence of continuous improvement,” Schlanger said.
Chamberlain said giving officers a better understanding of what their training means and why they are doing it makes them more willing to make the changes the department strives for, and it gives them more pride in their work.
“That, to me, is the message that we are sending out, and that’s the message that they need to hear so that they have a buy into it,” he said, “Because if they don’t have a buy into it, it doesn’t matter what I say at the chief’s office; if the personnel that’s out pushing the Black and white at two o’clock in the morning doesn’t understand the objective, it will fail.”
That’s where the department has completely shifted over the past five years, he said.
Dissecting any mistakes helps not only the current officers but can also help future officers in similar situations, Chamberlain said.
“I think, again, we have grown in leaps and bounds as far as being able to modify in a very short time an understanding of where community members in the City of Aurora are being victimized, and then how do we effectively address that?” He said. “That, to me, is really an important aspect.”
Balancing crime prevention and ethical accountability will continue to be the priority, Chamberlain said.
“We’re doing a lot of work in policies and procedures, but you’ve heard me talk about the philosophy of continuous improvement,” Schlanger said. “When this department comes out from under the consent decree and has a philosophy of continuous improvement, and is always asking itself, what could we have done differently to have achieved a better outcome, we will know that we have achieved all that the consent decree really set out to achieve.”
I am sure that the APD is moving toward greater compliance with the flawed Consent Decree. That is, unfortunately, not a positive. The Attorney General, who is unacquainted with criminal law, came out with a badly flawed consent decree that echoes the badly flawed SB217 bill passed by the liberal legislature. Weiser attributes everything to systemic racism, as did former president Biden. Weiser wants APD to accomplish racially proportionate policing. That won’t happen. The reason is simple. Black suspects commit a racially disproportionate amount of crime. It is a cultural problem that black ministers have tried to address in their communities for a long time without success. While the majority of the black community is law abiding, there is a significant segment, particularly young black males, who are not. The Attorney General, Weiser, has labeled any incident involving black suspects as racist. Conforming to Weiser’s ideas will do little to change the reality of law enforcement in Aurora. Having many layers of use of force review means little if those involved are not realistic about use of force. I have constantly reiterated the tragic case of two APD officers who were unjustly criminally charged within days without even the pretense of a real investigation. Detective Ethan Snow did not pick up the videotapes that would have cleared the officers before filing charges. Former Chief Wilson demanded an expedited internal review and Division Chief Juul chaired a Use of Force Review that issued a report that is full of untrue and misleading statements. It is apparent that the videos that would have cleared the officers were never viewed by those who issued the report and are not even mentioned. After going before City Council with the evidence and also filing an Internal Affairs Complaint against the Detective and the Division Chief for unsatisfactory performance and untruthful statements in official reports, there has been total silence. There appears to be no integrity anywhere in the system. The primary officer was acquitted of all charges by a jury that saw the video after I dug it out of the reams of discovery information. The video has never been released to the public as the law requires and has never been shown to the members of the department. Although the original incident was not under the purview of the present chief or the Consent Decree Monitor, the Internal Affairs complaint is. I made it clear to Chief Chamberlain that a complaint had been made and that his Division Chief Juul, now Deputy Chief, had issued a dishonest report that cost two officers their careers. No response to an Internal affairs compliant made almost a year ago. So, if they are admitting mistakes and fixing them, I don’t see it.
Changing your policies to reflect bad law, instead of going to the legislature to fix bad law, is not a great idea. SB217 drove thousands of good officers out of law enforcement. The legislature now talks about how they care about public safety, while they leave the vague and dangerous law in effect. So what did they do to you, the public? It is now common, in Aurora, for there to be over one hundred pending calls. Officers are getting to domestic violence calls the next day. Even serious calls may not see an officer for hours. Did you notice that in the recent officer involved shooting the lone officer showed up two hours after the original call? Fighting the suspect alone, he had to shoot the suspect. So, proactive policing is very difficult without having officers to handle the basic calls. While Chief Chamberlain is an improvement to morale, he lacks in the same area that most chiefs do. Police officers receive about half the training in physical control skills and tactics that they should before going out on the street. The followup training is token, at best. So, poorly trained officers become poorly trained supervisors who become poorly trained chiefs. Most of the police shootings are the result of poor training and supervision. Whatever racial bias exists is due to poor and uncaring supervision. In the recent Kylin Lewis shooting, they acknowledged that they were changing some SWAT policies. So, what were they doing before the shooting? Does it take shootings to prompt them to do their jobs? Or do they not know enough to do the job? I am told that the physical control skill level of the officers and the training they receive have declined significantly in the last few years. There also has been a decline in the availability of protective equipment and its use that would prevent shootings. So, the nice policies that the Consent Monitor wants to enforce are just smoke and mirrors. But, it is feel good.