CHIEF CONCERNS: Four Aurora police chief finalists are heavy on experience, diversity

AURORA  | The four finalists for Aurora police chief met with city leaders, local residents and the officers they hope to command this week.

City Manager Skip Noe is expected to choose a new chief in the coming weeks, with an announcement likely sometime after the first of the year.

People who know the four finalists say they are all qualified to take the helm of the 650-officer department in Colorado’s third largest city. Here is a look at the four candidates based on conversations with people who have worked with them.

Jose Bañales

In his 30 years with San Antonio police, Jose Bañales has held almost every position in the department. He started as a patrol officer, worked his way to patrol lieutenant and later held several management positions before being named assistant police chief.

Still, even as one of the top three officers in the city, Bañales can be found at officer roll calls at the start of daily shifts, chatting with the officers who patrol the streets he once did.

“He has never forgotten where he came from,” said Lt. Michael Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association.

Helle said Bañales is a popular figure in the 2,300-officer department, and one who has maintained a strong relationship with the police union.

Helle, who has been union president for seven years, said if there are issues related to the officers’ contract, Bañales has always been willing to confer with the union.

“He is very good about bringing us in and going over whatever issues there are,” he said.

But Bañales’ career hasn’t been without controversy.

In 2003, he was pulled over for erratic driving and suspected of driving drunk. While Bañales, who was a captain at the time, was found not to be over the legal limit, he was still suspended without pay for 30 hours for violating several department policies, according to the San Antonio Express-News. He was also barred from driving a city-owned vehicle. 

Helle said the incident sparked some attacks from officers who weren’t fond of Bañales who tried to say he was drunk at the time.

“They were all unwarranted,” he said.

Even after that controversy, Bañales still moved through the ranks, landing one of two assistant chief’s jobs in 2010.

Helle said the rumblings in San Antonio are that the current city administration will likely choose their next chief from another department, so it makes sense that Bañales would be looking for jobs elsewhere.

“It’s unfortunate, because I think he would make a good chief,” he said.

Fran Gomez

As the four finalists for police chief met members of the public last week, small groups of maybe a dozen people gathered around three of the candidates.

That wasn’t the case for Fran Gomez.

As the longtime Aurora police veteran and current Commerce City deputy chief chatted away, a line of police officers and civilians snaked through the lobby of the Aurora Municipal Center, dwarfing the crowds around the other candidates.

The scene was indicative of Gomez’s longstanding popularity at city hall and among the city’s police force.

“Fran is very well respected on the department, I think she would fare well here,” said Officer Mark Finnin, president of the Aurora Police Association.

The police union won’t be endorsing a candidate, Finnin said, but they have said they prefer a candidate who is familiar with the department.

“The thing that would be nice about her is she could come back into the department and hit the ground running,” Finnin said.

Gomez started with APD in 1990 as a patrol officer and steadily rose through the ranks. Along the way, she was the first woman to earn the rank of lieutenant over the SWAT unit.

In 2012, she was named commander of District 3, the largest of the department’s three districts. That assignment, too, was a first for the department as Gomez became APD’s first female commander.

In 2013, Gomez accepted a job as deputy chief in Commerce City.

Commerce City Chief Troy Smith, who hired Gomez to one of that department’s top spots just over a year ago, said Gomez being in the running for the APD chief slot is a product of her two decades of work here.

“Being one of the finalists for the City of Aurora Police Chief position is a terrific accomplishment and speaks to Deputy Chief Gomez’s 23 years of prior service to that community and the relationships she built,” he said in an email this week.

But, Smith said, losing Gomez to her old department would be bittersweet.

“While we would be disappointed to see her leave our organization, Aurora and Commerce City have a long-established, positive law enforcement relationship; I am supportive of her candidacy,” he wrote.

Nicholas Metz

For the last 30 years, Nick Metz has donned a Seattle police badge, working his way from patrol officer all the way to assistant chief.

Detective Ron Smith, a 21-year Seattle police veteran and president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild, said Metz has long been a popular figure among the department’s rank and file.

The department has gone through changes at the highest levels in recent years — with multiple interim chiefs before settling on a permanent one, as well as federal investigations into use of force issues. But throughout, Smith said Metz has been seen as an ally by the officers.

“He was about the only assistant chief that the rank and file had any respect for,” he said. “He was visible around the department in the different precincts.”

But Metz’s close relationship with some officers has irked others.

Last month, a sergeant filed a lawsuit against the city accusing Metz of giving preferential treatment to four officers who he is close friends with.

According to the lawsuit, filed by Sgt. Ella Elias, a 23-year Seattle PD veteran, Metz handpicked four friends for a lucrative overtime post patrolling nightclubs on weekends. When Elias complained that other officers didn’t get a chance to apply for the overtime — as required by department rules — she says she was retaliated against.

The department eventually opened up the nightclub patrols to other officers, but the lawsuit says the four officers regularly disrespected Elias afterward and she was bumped from her supervisor’s role.

Metz was also briefly demoted last year from assistant chief down to captain during an apparent feud with a former interim chief. Smith said that move was extremely unpopular with the department’s rank and file, who supported Metz.

Metz was eventually promoted back to assistant chief but was passed over for the department’s top job earlier this year.

Smith said that when Metz was passed over for the chief’s job, he expected Metz would look for a position somewhere else.

If Aurora chooses Metz, Smith said the department would get a hands-on chief who has worked well with a diverse community as well as officers up and down the ranks.

“He is not gonna be one that is going to roll out a subordinate to do his heavy lifting for him,” he said.

Roy Minter

This isn’t the first time Roy Minter’s name has been linked to the top job in the Aurora Police Department.

When he was promoted to commander in 2006 after 14 years with the APD, the talk around city hall and police headquarters was that Minter was on a path toward becoming police chief.

Two years later, the Police Executive Research Forum gave Minter the Gary P. Hayes Memorial Award, one of its top honors and one that recognizes up-and-coming police leaders — another in a long line of hints that the Detroit native was destined to run a big city police force. The award’s previous winners include the current chiefs in New York City and Washington, D.C.  But that award came after Minter had already moved from Aurora police and taken the top job in Denton, Texas. From there, Minter moved on to Peoria, Arizona where he currently commands a police force of about 190 officers in the Phoenix suburb.

When the finalists for APD’s top job were announced last week, few who followed the search to replace Dan Oates were surprised to see Minter’s name on the list, including the officers who currently work under Minter in Arizona.

Peoria Officer Mike Faith, president of the Peoria Police Officers Association, said hearing Minter’s name connected to another department was a minor surprise, but hearing that he was connected to the department where he spent so much time made sense.

“We were a little surprised to see that he wanted to leave, however it wasn’t shocking just due to the fact that he had been there for 15 years,” he said.

Faith said Minter’s relationship with the rank and file officers has improved since he took over there in 2011.

In 2012, a survey of the department showed more than 90 percent of the officers said morale was low, and the bulk of them said Minter’s leadership was a part of the problem, according to the Arizona Republic.

The survey came after some officers were frustrated with Minter for disciplining a popular cop who posed for a picture holding a bullet-riddled Obama campaign T-shirt.

Faith said the survey was never supposed to be public, and it came at a time when officers were frustrated over that case, as well as some changes Minter instituted when he took over.

Since then, the department has adjusted to many of those changes — which include an increased focus on community policing efforts that Aurora police have long used — and Faith said the relationship between the chief and the officers is better.

“It was just a transition that he had to make as well as we did,” he said.