AURORA | On average, Aurora police respond to eight hit-and-run crashes every day.
And while most don’t involve serious injury, they often mean a dinged-up bumper or a battered fence — and always a brooding victim.
“It is very frustrating for anybody that’s parked in a parking lot and has their car crashed into,” said Aurora police Officer Kevin Deichsel of the department’s traffic section.
And while those cases take several hours each for officers to investigate and to file charges on — and there have been more than 3,000 last year and upward of 700 already in 2017 — police say they don’t always lead to stiff punishments for scofflaw motorists who slam into something, or someone, and leave the scene.
Police are hoping a new city law will mean investigators can file these charges more quickly — and possibly score some tougher sentences for hit-and-run perpetrators.
Last month, the department’s traffic section asked city council to pass a law that would make misdemeanor hit-and-run a violation of the city’s municipal code. Doing so would effectively shift many of those cases from county court to the city’s municipal court, police said.
City Council’s Public Safety Committee signed off on the idea last month and the full city council is expected to vote on it in the coming weeks.
Deichsel said the paperwork requirements for officers in municipal court are far less daunting than they are at the county level. The shift could save officers several hours on every hit-and-run case, he said.
“It makes it a lot easier for getting the cases filed,” he said.
Aurora police Lt. Michael McClelland, who oversees the traffic section, said cases could be processed through municipal court quicker than at county court. That would mean cars that are impounded because of a hit-and-run charge could be released sooner, freeing up space in the already-packed impound lot.
In a memo to city council, McClelland also said the change would mean tougher sentences.
In one particular case, officers opted not to charge a driver with hit-and-run and instead charged them with other municipal offenses to keep the case in the city’s court, he said.
By doing so, that driver received a fine of more than $600. They would have faced a fine of only about $100 at the county level, the memo said.
Deischsel said many hit-and-run cases will still be prosecuted at county court, including felonies and cases that involve other crimes, such as DUI.