AURORA | Supporters and family of Jor’Dell Richardson, the 14-year-old shot and killed by an Aurora police officer on June 1, have scheduled a community memorial and procession this Friday evening at the Aurora Municipal Center.
The event will be directly following a private funeral for Richardson and will include eulogies by local faith leaders and a public procession of Richardson’s casket.
“Our family is in mourning, we are in pain, but our entire community is also in pain,” Jameco Richardson, Jordell Richardson’s father, said in an earlier news release. “We are gathering together to honor and celebrate his life, and grieve a death that came far too early.”
Attorneys for the family have levied a number of allegations against Aurora police for what they say has been mishandling of the case and an attempt to mislead the public.
“Instead of respecting the family and the community’s grief, Aurora’s Chief of Police Art Acevedo commenced a public disinformation campaign to disparage a slain 14-year-old child in order to defend his officers,” attorney Siddartha Rathod said Thursday in a statement. “Chief Acevedo issued a misleading press statement that made the public believe the officer who shot and killed Jor’Dell responded to an armed robbery – false.”
Acevedo’s comments to the public have changed during two press conferences. He has not addressed allegations that responding officers were under the impression an armed robbery had occurred. The agency has also struggled to explain why it was more than a week after the shooting before the department made public that it was a pellet gun and not a semi-automatic handgun that was found on Richardson when he was arrested.
Acevedo has consistently said the appearance of the gun, meant to look like a real firearm, is crucial to shooting investigation.
No details of an independent CIRT investigation, required by state law, have been released
The family and representatives are drawing parallels between Richardson’s death and that of Elijah McClain in 2019. McClain died at the hands of police after being accosted by police while walking home from a convenience store.
He was throttled during an arrest and injected by medics with a powerful sedative. He never regained consciousness from the episode. Police and medics involved in that case are being tried for homicide.
Critics of the family’s lawyers say Richardson was allegedly robbing a store just before the shooting and ran from police when the arrived on the scene, while McClain had done nothing wrong when approached by police. Rathod and others say police knew none of what Richardson was accused of when they spotted and chased him, and that their actions were racially motivated.
“The Aurora community deserves a police department that is honest and transparent, rather than reflexively defending its officers,” Rathod said. “Soon after Aurora Police Department officers murdered Elijah McClain, the then Chief of Police publicly and falsely exonerated the officers involved. Chief Acevedo’s half-truths, material omissions, and outright lies show that he is following the same playbook.”
The public event is scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. at city hall with eulogies from Richardson’s family members and faith leaders. At 5:40 p.m. a processional march will begin which will be led by pallbearers carrying Richardson’s casket.
The procession “will likely follow a route that surrounds the Aurora Municipal Center,” the release said. That’s the route protestors took Friday following a press conference on behalf of Richardson’s family, where a group of several hundred briefly halted traffic on South Chambers Road and East Alameda Parkway during a march around the complex.
A flyer for the event says the procession is scheduled to last until 6:30 p.m.
The event was initially announced Sunday to be taking place outside the Capitol Building in Denver, but was moved .
“Jor’Dell Richardson lived in Aurora and died in Aurora at the hands of the Aurora Police Department,” teacher and activist Tim Hernandez said Monday on Twitter. “Jor’Dell’s Community March and Procession will NOT be in Denver; it will be in Aurora, too.”
Police say Richardson was tackled while running from police June 1 after flashing what appeared to be a firearm inside a small Aurora store, and then stealing vaping canisters with other unidentified juveniles. Police Chief Art Acevedo said the boy had a firearm in his waistband and was shot during a struggle. Police later revealed the weapon was a BB gun designed to look like an actual gun.
An attorney for the family said police overreacted to the call and that Richardson was likely shot inadvertently by officers trying to arrest the boy.
A regional independent investigation team will determine if police acted wrongly or illegally during the arrest.
Donations for Richardson’s family are being solicited through a GoFundMe page which has raised about $16,500 as of Monday evening.
Organizers of the event include longtime Aurora activist and former city council candidate Candice Bailey.
“We are asking all people who care about racial justice in Denver, Aurora, and the larger Denver-Metro area to support the family of Jor’Dell Richardson on Friday as they lay their son to rest with community,” Bailey said in a statement.
Other organizers included Richardson’s friends and several former teachers.
Alicia Garcia, a former dean at Kenton Elementary School where Richardson attended prior to Aurora West, told the Sentinel on Friday that she was “absolutely gutted” by the news of his death.
While she believes that all kids have an inherent goodness, she said Richardson wasn’t the kind of student who got into trouble at school.
“If he was in the dean’s office, it was to bring my spirits up,” she said.
Garcia remembered Richardson as someone who was always trying to make jokes and cheer other people up.
“Some kids just have a bright light,” she said, tearing up. “And that was Jor’Dell.”
A tragedy when a kid dies, but this kid put himself in harms way by robbing a store with a gun. Why don’t all of you see how that store clerk is doing??? This is just another ploy to make money. Where are all of you when other black kids are murdered??? This only gains attention when it involves the police shooting an armed minority because bottom line is making money.
Stop supporting Jim Crow Domestic Urban Terrorism, the shooting would have occurred even if he was uninvolved and unarmed simply because he ran away from his killers.
“Community” appears to be the latest shibboleth employed by rad-left marxists to justify anti-social behavior that leads to low-trust societies.
The reality is that the kid committed a felony by using the threat of deadly force to rob someone, flashed it at the cops, and ended up dying as a result. The only thing being demanded here is that the “community” should be able to act out with impunity while anyone they target has to sit there and take it.
Also, Tim Hernandez needs to keep his criminal-enabling, anti-white dum thug azz parked in North Denver where it belongs, instead of spreading his blinkered, cancerous idiocy to the east metro.
AMEN to that!!!
The Thugs actually work in Law Enforcement.
No, they reside in your cesspool of a neighborhood.
Felon and race huckster Candaice Bailey, that Candice Bailey?
Listen, regardless of race or financial motivations, the bottom line is…this young man was stealing, he had a bb gun that looked like a real gun!!! How did the police overreact? What would you do if your life was in danger? I’d fight as hard and with all the tools available to me! So would you! A policemans job is to protect and serve, a very basic descriptor, it includes putting themselves in harms way, it doesn’t include dying or allowing anyone to take their life [unfortunately, officers still die]. The only job that includes that responsibility would be the secret service. This is what it takes to keep a free society, laws and those who enforce it….look at CA or Washington state or Chicago…people are leaving in droves to escape the liberal lawlessness!
Jesus, bless this young man’s family, their friends, this child’s soul and the community at large. Please restore justice and community…have mercy on us all Lord, these are trying times. Amen Jesus.
Odd because Dylan Roof was armed and had actually murdered several people, but the Police treated him to Burger King and gave him a bullet proof vest.
What a B.S statement from the family. “Our family is in mourning, we are in pain, but our entire community is also in pain,”. The entire community of Aurora is not in pain! Your kid robbed a store with a gun and ran from the police. Once again, innocent folks don’t run. And, he had a gun and only later we found out that it was a pellet gun. Dumb choices from a young man who obviously didn’t have good role models. And, don’t play the race card here. This had nothing to do with race. Very tragic but, don’t honor him like some Head of State here. He is not a hero! I’m sad for his parents and siblings but, Jordell made some bad choices that day.
Anyone with common sense runs from Jim Crow Uniformed Domestic Urban Terrorist.
I find it both interesting and disturbing that nobody seems to care about the Asian American customers and employees who were afraid they might be shot when this kid flashed his weapon. It would have been a class act for an apology to be issued by the activists at their Wednesday community forum, but it didn’t happen. Maybe the victims of the robbery were supposed to know it was just a pellet gun. For those who want to know the legal definition of a robbery read the lawyer’s bible, Black’s Law Dictionary.
Looked OK to me when I saw the video. I say good job by APD. This article is complete and total propaganda.
I’ve marched in the streets for Elijah McClain, but I’m confused as to J’Ordell’s family’s defense here. Am I missing something? Yes, the Aurora Police Department is a festering abcess on the city, and it certainly seems like they’ve royally screwed up another interaction with a young, black male. But was this one committing a crime and brandishing a gun, or not? What does his family say? Elijah wasn’t doing either. The comparisons are confusing and they seem unfair to Elijah and his family. I’m just trying to collect all the facts. If APD murdered another innocent, young, black male, I’ll march in the streets again. If he was committing a robbery and had a gun, even if it was fake, then I don’t know what choice APD had. APD is making themselves look guilty of something by not being forthcoming and my inclination is to not trust anything they say, anyway. But if this kid was committing a major crime when he died, I don’t know if APD is to blame this time. I guess I’ll wait like the rest of the city for APD to decide which story they want to stick with. However it turns out, it’s another disaster in leadership with devastating ripple effects on the community and it’s another embarrassing story out of Aurora, Colorado. Why is it so hard for Aurora to find a competent police chief???
Weird how the Sentinel never runs any articles addressing this situation from the other side. So weird………it’s almost like they want their readership to think a certain way on this issue. That can’t possibly be it, though. I, for one, have never read a more unbiased local new publication in my life. I cannot fathom why they would have so many financial struggles when they are the most thorough, most unbiased journalists out there.
FOR ALL YOU RACIST THE KID NEVER FLASHED A GUN NEVER RESISTED FELL IN A POTHOLE I WAS THERE THEY SAID THEY JUST SHOPLIFTED!!!! I WATCHED THEM CHASE HIM THE VEHICLE WHICH IRONICALLY WAS STOLEN HAD BEEN RAN BY THE POLICE BEFORE THE KID RAN WAS GONE HE SURRENDERD GAVE UP THE BODY CAM DOESN’T SHOW A GUN OR HIS HANDS NEAR HIS WAIST HE MADE A BAD CHOICE BUT HE DID NOT DESERVE TO BE KILLED
Racist? I would have said the same had the criminal been Asian or Hispanic or White.
Not “just shoplifted” when a gun is used to threaten lives. “Armed robbery”.
Do you know the other criminals involved in this crime? Told police who they are?
Sad that he caused police to shoot him. Police would have rightly shot me or anyonelse doing the same. Sad that he did not just put his hands in the air. I would have instantly complied with police orders, especially with a lethal weapon on me.
I forgot the detail of the stolen car. What’s saddest is that this little kid didn’t know right from wrong. I don’t think that’s his fault. He paid the ultimate price for the adults in his life failing him. Was there a gun, or not, APD?? If not, it was another case of excessive force. But the kid should’ve known better, and every kid should know better, than to commit a robbery in a stolen car and then run from police. That’s a messy adult game with adult consequences. A 14 year old in a stolen car committing a robbery is as dangerous as an adult. It’s tragic that the kid wasn’t taught better. A white kid probably wouldn’t have gotten shot by APD, regardless of having a gun, frankly, and that’s the sad world we live in. ANYONE committing these crimes together, regardless of race or age or any other mitigating factors, should be stopped to protect the rest of us. These crimes have victims, and if you don’t want to end up dead at the hands of the police, you won’t play these games. And if you don’t want your kids to end up dead, you’ll teach them to be good people who don’t take what isn’t theirs. The family should be mad–really mad–at themselves. We’ll see if APD screwed up, too–again. But just because APD is a mess with a terrible track record, it doesn’t mean that they’re always going to be the ones to blame in these situations. Teach your children better, People!
You are correct—this is a parenting problem, not a police problem.
Shush, stop lying.