AURORA | “I am LaRonda Jones and I had to bury my son.”
So began a statement Monday evening by the mother of Kilyn Lewis, who was shot on May 23 by Aurora SWAT Officer Michael Dieck while being arrested, unarmed. Lewis, 37, died from his wounds two days later.
As she has at Aurora City Council meetings every month since, Jones described the “crushing weight” of her loss in hopes that Aurora City Council members will force law enforcement to speed up their investigation, fire Dieck — who is on paid leave during the probe — and criminally charge him for her son’s killing.
What made Monday’s meeting different, however, was that 16 other members of the public repeated Jones’ 445-word statement, word for word, during the council’s hour-long public comment period. The meeting became a literary reading of sorts — the latest tactic Lewis’s family and civil rights activists have used to try to force what they say is an unconcerned council to answer questions about his killing and address the city’s long string of police excessive force cases, especially against people of color.
During other previous protests in City Council chambers, police or city staffers have told family members and activists that the city council is technically powerless in the case. Only the police chief can fire officers. Only outside investigators and the district attorney can decide whether to file charges against Dieck. The investigation itself is conducted entirely apart from the city. City lawmakers and police officials point to due process.
“I am LaRonda Jones, and I had to bury my son,” speaker after speaker — women and men, young and old, Black and white — would start.
“It has been 122 days since Kilyn’s life was cut short. One-hundred and twenty-two days since I last heard his voice, felt his presence, or told him how much I love him. My son was a kind, loving man. He had dreams, hopes, and a future. But in one horrific moment, those dreams were shattered — because of police violence. Because of an officer who chose to take my son’s life rather than protect it.”
Five officers rushed onto Lewis while attempting to arrest him at an Aurora apartment parking lot. Police bodycam video showed that only one officer, Dieck, fired at Lewis as he raised his hands above his head, holding a mobile phone in one hand.
What also made Monday’s meeting different was that council members held it virtually rather than in person, partly to avoid disruptions by Lewis’s family and civil rights activists. All summer, they have shown up at council meetings to make impassioned and often rowdy pleas for accountability and justice.
The line-up of call-in speakers to the live-streamed meeting slammed council members as “cowards” both for holding the meeting virtually and for voting to change the rules governing public comments at their biweekly meetings moving forward.
That resolution will, ironically, end the council’s practice of allowing members of the public to call in comments via phone, forcing them to attend future city council meetings in person, if they want to address the council.
City lawmakers say the new rule comes in response to a caller who identified himself only as “Scotty” at the council’s Sept. 9 meeting and described himself as a white supremacist. He referred to Venezuelan migrants and protesters in Aurora as “sh**-skinned” people. And, among other comments, he described Gov. Jared Polis as a “fa**** kike governor.” The caller accused all of the lawmakers of being guilty of taking “Jewish money.”
His comments led civil rights activists to start chanting for council members to “apologize now” for allowing the caller on the line, which in turn prompted the council to leave its chambers and hold the rest of its Sept. 9 meeting virtually.
“This is how we ensure it doesn’t happen again,” Councilmember Curtis Gardner said Monday.
“I think that showing up at a council meeting is sufficient,” Mayor Mike Coffman added.
Councilmember Crystal Murillo — who, along with Ruben Medina, voted against the public-comment rule changes — called them “an overreaction” to “just one comment (that)…some council members didn’t even think was a serious threat.”
The council’s sweeping new rules also will make it less convenient for activists and other members of the public to speak in person at its meetings. It will force them to sign up starting at 5 p.m., 90 minutes before the meeting starts every other Monday, as opposed to online three days prior on Friday afternoons, which has been the policy.
Given that the council limits public comments to one hour, the limited sign-up period could make it less likely for people who can’t make it to city hall until after their workday ends to be heard on issues many members of the public want to address.
Still, some activists who spoke Monday said the council’s resolution won’t deter them from continuing to press the city council for more police accountability.
“You can change the rules … but guess what? We will still be here in two weeks,” said Auon’tai Anderson, spokesperson for the Justice for Kilyn Action Team.
Robert Lewis, Kilyn Lewis’ father, told the Sentinel, he will continue speaking at council meetings until the city fills him in on the details of his son’s shooting, shares body camera recordings of the incident, and takes responsibility for the killing.
“It’s not safe to be policed by a police force like this,” he said. “The way they went about it was just wrong.”
By its slanted reporting, the Sentinel has again boxed itself into a corner. What are you going to do if the Arapahoe District Attorney determines the officer was justified in shooting Kilyn?
Contrary to the claims of the family and their activists, Kilyn was not a good man who was deprived of his day in court by a rogue cop. What is more likely the case, Kilyn was a man whose actions resulted in his own death.
Your reporter didn’t mention Kilyn had a long list of convictions for violent crimes. At the time of his death, he was being arrested on a warrant for attempted first-degree murder. The reporter also didn’t mention that body cameras worn by the arresting officers show Kilyn was given multiple orders to drop to the ground. Instead, he walked from the rear of his car to the driver’s door. Then, an officer facing Kilyn saw him reach behind his back and draw his hand forward. Not knowing what Kilyn was bringing forward, that officer took action to protect himself and fired. The family claims the officer should have known Kilyn was unarmed because the officers behind him could see that he didn’t have a gun. The shooting officer’s split-second decision will probably be the crux of the case.
There is a high probability the District Attorney will find for the police officer. Kilyn was being arrested for attempted murder. Kilyn refused commands to submit to arrest. Kilyn reached for something behind him. If Kilyn was armed, the officer’s life would have been in danger. The officer who shot only knew that a violent criminal was taking action that could have resulted in his death.
If the ruling is against Kilyn, will the Sentinel reverse its spin of the facts and support justice? Or more likely, the journalists at the Sentinel will continue to raise racial tensions in Aurora by misrepresenting what occurred. Only time will tell.
In the Sentinel’s persistent effort to obfuscate the facts, this writer continues to leave out two very pertinent details that preceded the shooting. 1.) That Lewis ignored the more than a dozen orders to “get on the ground” instead walking from the trunk to the driver’s door of his car and 2.) he reached out of the officer’s view, behind his back and withdrew an object LATER determined to be a cell phone. Compliance could’ve made a difference in his unfortunate outcome.
Liberals make a habit of choosing deeply flawed criminal actors to canonize in their war against law enforcement. Michael Brown. George Floyd. Now Kilyn Lewis. They should pick less-assailable characters if they have any.
His family is trying to get paid here, by the residents of Aurora that Kilyn had no regard for. That’s all this is. How disgusting.