Police say slain boy, 14, had pellet gun; family, activists lash out at Aurora chief

AURORA | For the first time since the long, hot summer of 2020, racial justice protesters shut down traffic in Aurora as they marched in the streets Friday afternoon demanding justice for Jor’Dell Richardson, a 14-year-old shot and killed by police on June 1.

The protestors voiced anger at Friday’s announcement from the Aurora Police Department that Richardson, a suspect in the robbery of an Aurora convenience store, had a pellet gun at the time of his death — not a firearm, as police had said earlier.

“Jor’Dell was a boy and had a toy,” said Siddhartha Rathod, a lawyer representing Richardson’s family.

Police argued that the pellet gun looked like a real firearm.

On Sunday, friends and members of Richardson’s family announced they would hold a funeral procession Friday at the Colorado State Capitol with the boy’s casket. The event is slated to begin at 5 p.m. with a memorial and eulogy planned by community leaders for the west steps of the Capitol. A funeral march is scheduled to begin at approximately 5:40 p.m., according to a social media post.

Many in the crowd on Friday were veterans of the protests calling for justice for Elijah McClain, and questioned why the city was yet again asking for answers following the death of a young Black male at the hands of police.

“You cannot be trusted if you cannot tell us the truth,” Pastor Thomas Mayes said of APD. “Come clean, or stay away dirty.”

Dueling press conferences took place Friday afternoon at the Aurora municipal complex, with APD holding a press conference where body-worn camera footage of the shooting was publicly released for the first time. Following the police press conference, Richardson’s family held a press conference and then a march around the complex, which spilled into the streets.

Scheduled for 3:30 p.m., the family’s press conference began over an hour and a half late due to how late the sprawling and lengthy police press conference ran, where the footage was not shown until about 45 minutes in.

Some protesters accused the police of intentionally stalling to try to discourage the crowd, which Interim Police Chief Art Acevedo scoffed at.

“I’m not going to come in here and rush this press conference because he thinks that’s what I should do, and shame on him,” he said in response to a comment from Rathod.

Acevedo at the press conference avoided weighing in on the decision by one of his officers to fatally shoot Richardson but displayed an image that he said showed the boy reaching into his waistband for a pellet gun resembling a firearm.

Explaining his reluctance to talk about officers’ actions, he said the investigation by the 18th Judicial District’s Critical Incident Response Team into whether criminal charges ought to be filed against the officers involved was ongoing, along with an internal probe.

Multiple sources familiar with the matter told the Sentinel that the chief has spoken about the possibility of pulling the department out of its current agreement with the 17th and 18th judicial districts to handle investigations of officer-involved shootings.

The chief would not answer whether Aurora police would remain in the current agreement but said the process was not entirely consistent with what he would like to see. He said it would not impact the Richardson investigation and that he didn’t want to speculate on who might take over those investigations.

Friday’s event included the release of body-worn camera footage from the perspective of two Aurora officers involved in the June 1 incident — including the officer who fired the fatal single shot, Roch Gruszeczka — though the videos fail to show what exactly Richardson was doing at the moment he was shot.

After officer James Snapp tackled Richardson, the teen said, “Stop, please, you got me.”

“Gun, gun, let go of the f*****g gun,” Gruszeczka yells. He then yells that he is going to fire, and a gunshot is heard.

The footage captures the hectic final moments of Richardson’s life as he screams, pleads for help, tells officers that he cannot breathe and becomes unresponsive. Police tried unsuccessfully to revive Richardson before paramedics arrived and took over medical care.

While Acevedo would not say whether he believed Gruszeczka was right in shooting Richardson, one image highlighted by Acevedo that was taken from another officer’s perspective shortly before Richardson was tackled to the ground and several seconds before he was shot showed Richardson’s hand near his waistband.

The chief remarked to those present, “you can make your own assessment, and that will be part of the investigation.”

Acevedo said Gruszeczka and Snapp were both hired in 2017 and are presently serving with the department’s gang intervention unit. He also said neither officer had a record of “significant” use-of-force incidents or disciplinary histories.

Responding to criticism from community members stemming from his apparent decision to tell Richardson’s mother that he didn’t think the teen had suffered, Acevedo said he was hopeful Richardson did not suffer as his stomach wound worsened.

“I just hope and pray that he didn’t suffer, that he was in the arms of angels right away when he went into cardiac arrest,” he said. “It’s a tragedy because we have yet again in this country an encounter involving young people, and acts of violence, and ultimately an officer-involved … shooting.”

Richardson’s father, Jameco Richardson, criticized Acevedo for those comments at the family’s press conference.

“Our son died in a dirty alley,” he said. “How dare you.”

While Acevedo lamented the fact of the shooting, he said officers may have feared for their lives during the struggle with Richardson, who police say was tackled after robbing a convenience store for vape cartridges.

Addressing the attorneys representing the family of the slain teenager, Acevedo accused representatives of the family of misrepresenting what happened and said officers weren’t able to break the situation down at the time like people viewing the video footage frame by frame.

“When your life is on the line, mister attorney, what are you going to do?” Acevedo asked. “We have a 14-year-old kid dead, and we have officers who were involved who have to live with this critical incident for the rest of their lives. So it is not a toy. In fact, our officers believed that it was a semi-automatic, nine-millimeter (pistol). But I understand the lawyers’ (decision) to call it a toy. And by the way, pellet guns can cause serious bodily injury or death.”

Rathod said Richardson’s family was told that he had a pellet gun, not an actual handgun, “about five minutes” before the public press conference began. He said police did not give any explanation for why they were just being told this over a week after the shooting.

Acevedo said he had “confirmed” that the item was a pellet gun rather than a firearm the day before Friday’s news conference.

Juan Marcano, an Aurora city council member, also said that the information was new to him despite having been in conversation with the police department since the incident.

Acevedo criticized the media for sharing what he said was incorrect information about the shooting without specifying what coverage had been in error.

Leon Kelly, executive director of Open Door Youth Gang Initiatives, was also invited by police to speak. He argued that the individuals who were with Richardson, and community members who did not intervene to dissuade Richardson from involvement in crime, were also to blame for the teen’s death.

“I wouldn’t be standing here if I didn’t have compassion for the family,” he said. “This is not a George Floyd. … This was technically a robbery. It was in the commission of a crime.”

He argued that Acevedo had acted with transparency by releasing the body-worn camera footage and sharing other information with the public.

Acevedo said two other 14-year-olds involved in the alleged June 1 robbery have been arrested on suspicion of false imprisonment and aggravated robbery, and that other people who were involved had been tentatively identified.

Rathod characterized APD’s press conference as an attempt by Acevedo to “exonerate” the officers, not an exercise in transparency. Other speakers made similar remarks.

Jameco Richardson said that he would like to see Acevedo removed from his position.

“You don’t deserve that badge,” he said. “You don’t deserve to be called chief. You’re a coward.”

Also present were Richardson’s mother, 19-year-old brother and grandmother. His mother, Laurie Littlejohn, said that he had been “the light of our house.”

“For a week now, our light has dimmed low,” she said.

Littlejohn thanked everyone for the support the family has received over the past week, and said that her son did not deserve what happened to him.

“In life, we make mistakes so that we can grow,” she said. “They took that from our son.”

Littlejohn asked people not to forget his name in the weeks and months to come.

“This is going to be a long road for us,” she said.