Recruits in the Aurora Police Department’s Class 2023-3B raise their hands and are sworn in as officers during a police academy graduation ceremony at Highpoint Church Aurora on Thursday, March 7, 2024. The ceremony marked the conclusion of a 26-week training regimen, and the class of 29 was part of the largest wave of recruits that the department has seen in more than four years. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

Judge Shawn Day stood before a phalanx of police recruits, who sported the badges their family members and friends had just pinned over their hearts. The badges were the outward symbol of the group’s acceptance into the ranks of the Aurora Police Department. But Day was there to administer the oath that would make real their transition from recruits into sworn police officers.

Along with the judge, the 29 recruits raised their rights hands and began: “I do solemnly swear or affirm…”

Alicia Pour addresses fellow police recruits and audience members present at the Thursday, March 7, 2024, graduation ceremony for the Aurora Police Department’s Class 2023-3B. Pour described how her class bonded over their shared commitment to public service during their 26 weeks of academy training. “Police work is family work,” she said. “A family is a group of people in the service of an individual. This is us. Our ‘individual’ is the 399,913 people … in the City of Aurora.” (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

The latest class to complete Aurora’s 26-week police academy graduated Thursday and was honored at an afternoon ceremony held at Highpoint Church Aurora. For the dozens of city and police officials in attendance, Class 2023-3B represented a beachhead in APD’s fight to rebuild its dwindling police force.

Recruit John Steward shakes the hand of Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman, pictured next to Councilmember Francoise Bergan, after Steward received his Aurora Police Department badge during the academy graduation ceremony for Class 2023-3B. City and police officials joined the friends and family of recruits in welcoming the class into the police department during the ceremony held Thursday, March 7, 2024, at Highpoint Church Aurora. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

For the proud parents, children and well-wishers who made up much of the crowd, the ceremony was reassurance that Aurora’s veteran police officers had the backs of their loved ones.

And for the recruits themselves, Thursday was the joyful culmination of six months of hard work, during which time they bonded with their academy classmates over what class speaker Alicia Pour described as a shared commitment to public service.

Joshua Keown embraces Alicia Pour shortly after the two were sworn in as Aurora Police Department officers along with the 27 other recruits in Class 2023-3B, which entered the department’s police academy in September. The class was sworn in near the end of a graduation ceremony held at Highpoint Church Aurora on Thursday, March 7, 2024. (Max Levy / Sentinel Colorado)

“Police work is family work,” Pour said. “A family is a group of people in the service of an individual. This is us. Our ‘individual’ is the 399,913 people … in the City of Aurora.”

— Photo Essay by Max  Levy, Sentinel Staff Reporter