Stopping gun violence before it happens in Aurora. Is SAVE salvation or harassment?

AURORA | An Aurora community youth gun-violence prevention program is highlighting tension between a desire for safer communities and a lack of trust in police. 

Aurora’s Standing Against Violence Everyday program, which identifies youth involved in gun violence and directs them to supportive services, has recently drawn both positive and negative attention. 

Several times in recent months, progressive city council members have asked about the effectiveness of the program and requested more information, though no specific changes have been proposed. Additionally, an April city council meeting featured several public speakers who raised concerns about racial bias in the program.

Meanwhile, the SAVE program was chosen for a featured presentation at the 34th annual International Problem-Oriented Policing Conference in November. Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain touts the success of the program, saying it’s evidence-based and effective.

The Sentinel took a long look examining the program and concerns around it.

What is SAVE?

The SAVE program is a youth gun-violence prevention program that officially started in September 2023. It presses police to identify youth tied to gun violence with gang connections and aims to direct them to supportive services and deter future violence.

APD’s Lt. Anna Bungartz said the department enacted the program after a spike in youth violence in 2021. She said they chose the program, which is a national model that has been adapted locally, because it combined “an actual genuine offer of help” with accountability.

“We want to get to them on the very front end to interrupt the cycle of gun violence,” Bungartz said.

The program is a partnership between the city’s Youth Violence Prevention Programs, the Aurora Police Department, Justice Works Case Management and four community organizations. The community organizations are Hazelbrook, Life-Line, Road Called Strate and Struggle of Love Foundation.

The police department’s SAVE team is led by Bungartz and Officer Jaime Gonzalez Dominguez.

Bungartz said the partnership element is crucial because though police want to be part of the solution, “we can’t be the only solution.”

“By the time that (police get involved), it’s very obvious to see that several other societal structures have failed,” she said.

The program was established through a partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice and the National Network for Safe Communities, a criminal justice research center. It is funded by a federal grant.

How does SAVE work?

The criteria to be considered as a candidate for the SAVE program is threefold: the person is between 14 and 25 years old; they have connection to a gun violence crime, either as a suspect or victim; and the crime includes gang involvement.

Police examine incidents of gun violence, including illegal possession of a weapon and fatal and non-fatal shootings, weekly to identify possible candidates. Then a group of law enforcement officers and the community organizations involved review potential candidates for notification to make sure they fit the criteria, according to police and city staff.

Once a person has been identified, a group consisting of a SAVE detective, members of one of the community organizations, a case manager and other police officers deliver a personalized letter to the recipient’s home in an unannounced visit. The letter can be delivered to family members if the intended recipient isn’t available. 

Bungartz said the letter and conversations at the door are customized for each individual and their situation.

Between September 2023 and June 25, 2026, the SAVE program attempted to contact 372 recipients and successfully contacted 335 recipients, a 90% contact rate. 

The letter includes connections to a variety of resources, such as educational tutoring, mental health support, substance use programs, skills training, food security, utility and rent support, peer mentorship and court navigation assistance. It also includes a warning about potential consequences for gun violence.

Since the program is voluntary, after a recipient gets the letter, what happens next is up to them, Bungartz said. Recipients can choose to seek help from the services available, continue connecting with the community organizations or not follow up at all. Bungartz noted the services are provided to families at no cost.

Bungartz said the community organizations follow up with recipients, but police involvement ends after the letter is delivered, unless there is another crime or arrest. She said police can share information about SAVE recipients with the court system.

“We would let the court know if they have been given the notification and the resources and then they continue to perpetrate violence in the community,” Bungartz said. 

District attorneys for the 17th and 18th Judicial Districts said they take into account all mitigating and aggravating factors, including participation in SAVE, on a case-by-case basis when prosecuting crimes.

The police department keeps a list of the recipients, which it says is only accessible by the law enforcement members of SAVE. Police said they do not reference the list during criminal investigations for potential suspects.

Individuals remain on the list for three years, after which they are purged from the list if they’re not involved in additional gun violence. Individuals that can’t be contacted or located are removed from the list after an 18 month pending period.

Police will consider gun violence incidents outside of the city when determining whether someone is a SAVE candidate if there’s a strong Aurora connection. 

Should a recipient be charged with gun violence related crimes, including crimes outside of the city that police are aware of, during the three-year period, it would reset, according to police.

Police said they use the three year timeframe because federal law allows a five year retention period for information from criminal intelligence systems.

“They will not be removed until three years of no new offenses,” police said in a follow-up email. “That is the point of the accountability piece and providing resources. If they are continuously offending, we are not doing our jobs at some level of the criminal justice eco-system.”

Since the program was created in 2023, the list will have its first purge this September.

If a recipient agrees to be connected with services, representatives from the community organizations help facilitate that. The community organizations don’t provide police with information on recipients.

“It’s a one-way flow of information and we don’t ask the community based organizations for any information,” Bungartz said.

Since August 2025, 56% of SAVE recipients have actively engaged in supportive services, according to Timiya Jackson, division manager for the city’s Youth Violence Prevention Programs.

Jackson said that while the SAVE program notifies individuals, the resources and services are available to the whole family. 

“We understand that part of the reason why a young person might be gang-involved or committing crimes is because of whatever is happening within the home, so being able to offer those supports and resources to the family at large, we hope will help put them on a different pathway,” Jackson said. 

SAVE not only focuses on prevention, but intervention, which Jackson said is equally important to address.

“Once decisions have been made or young people have contact with law enforcement, it doesn’t necessarily mean things are over for them, there’s always an opportunity for them to choose to do something different,” she said. 

While some people have chaffed at the tough love approach of SAVE, Jackson said the intent is to hold youth to “the highest expectations, but do so with love and grace.”

She added that the partnership between community organizations and police is necessary because “this is work that can’t be done by a sole entity.”

“This is doing something different,” Jackson said. “This is really being intentional around partnerships and collaboration for the next generation.”

What are the community concerns about SAVE?

JoJo Padilla, executive director with Denver Healing Generations, said he helped create the Voices of Honor Coalition, a group opposing the SAVE program, after hearing concerns that the program isn’t transparent and targets poor and minority families. 

The Voices of Honor Coalition organized youth to speak at the April city council meeting to bring attention to their concerns with the SAVE program. In addition to speaking out at meetings, Padilla said the group is working with SAVE recipients and encouraging local community groups not to collaborate on SAVE.

Padilla’s organization opposed a similar program that Denver was trying to create because of a lack of transparency. 

“What they wanted is for us to go on ride-alongs with the cops as they deliver a letter to the person you know saying ‘Hey, you’re on the list’ but (Denver) couldn’t answer any of our questions, like when did they get off the list or how do they get off the list,” he said.

Xavier Davis, Padilla’s co-chair for the Voices of Honor Coalition, worried about the potential impacts of a partnership between community groups and police.

“If (the community) starts thinking that we’re all siding with the Aurora Police Department and Aurora SAVE, they’re going to stop trusting us,” Davis said.

In addition to the lack of transparency, Padilla took issue with the “threatening” tone of the letter, saying these kinds of approaches “take away the humanity from somebody and convince people that they’re a criminal.”

18th Judicial District Attorney Amy Padden said she is encouraged by the outcomes and success she’s seen from SAVE, saying she doesn’t agree with concerns over the program’s approach.

“It’s not designed to be a punitive program, it’s designed to be a rehabilitative program,” Padden said. “This is looking for alternatives to putting someone in the court system.”

APD Chief Chamberlain defended the program from accusations of racial bias, noting that all participants have a connection to a documented crime.

“This is not about a scared straight,” Chamberlain said. “This is not about going and intimidating people. It’s not about profiling. It’s not about classifying people as a certain thing. The sole purpose is to stop the violence.”

APD’s Bungartz said the program is about deterring crimes by offering youth help, not defining participants as criminals. She added that it avoids bias by utilizing consistent criteria and data to select recipients.

“It’s very methodical and intelligence-driven,” Bungartz said. “We’re not doing a broad approach, we’re doing precision policing.”

While the police department did not provide demographic data specifically for SAVE recipients, it did say the breakdown would be similar to that of non-fatal shooting victims because the program requires candidates to have a connection to gun violence.

Police data shows that between 96% and 99% of non-fatal shooting victims each year from 2021 to 2025 were either Black or Hispanic. Police said the demographics of shooting suspects “skew at rates similar to victims.”

Alessandra Chavira, a coordinator at Denver Healing Generations, questioned how the program can be effective when the community doesn’t trust law enforcement.

“Aurora specifically has a lot of repairing to do with the community when it comes to their police department,” she said. “Until they do that restoration, the city of Aurora has a responsibility to provide those safety networks and programs to youth without involving the police.”

APD has been under a state-mandated consent decree since 2021 to address excessive use of force and patterns and practices of racial bias against people of color. Triggered in part by the 2019 death of Elijah McClain, who died at the hands of police and rescuers after being stopped, unarmed, the decree mandates broad reforms in training, accountability, use-of-force policies, data systems and community engagement. 

Padilla supports investing in community violence intervention, but said that work should not include law enforcement.

“It’s not going to be done with more policing, it’s not going to be done with more criminalization of people in the name of safety. It just never works like that,” Padilla said.

Police said they have to be involved when a crime is reported and since SAVE recipients have a connection to illegal gun violence, either as a victim or suspect, law enforcement is an important component of the program. 

Bungartz said she has seen a lot of success stories come from the program and thinks SAVE is helping rebuild trust between the community and police.

“The conversations that are occurring at the door are genuinely really good conversations that may not occur otherwise,” she said. 

Both Padden and 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason echoed that they have seen positive outcomes from the program.

“I’m encouraged by the conversations that I’ve had with some of the young men,” Mason said. “I think this is an example of government and community working together to address a serious public policy and serious public safety issue, and I’m proud of it.”

How can people participate in SAVE?

For one 15-year-old boy, who spoke to the Sentinel on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy, SAVE helped connect him with a mentor and a group of friends through the community organization Hazelbrook. 

The 15-year-old said he had started hanging out with members of a gang and after he spent time in juvenile detention, his family received a letter from SAVE. He said he wasn’t at home when the SAVE group delivered the letter to his house in March, but his family shared the information with him and he connected with Hazelbrook. 

Since then, he has enrolled in boxing classes and is working to get his driver’s license. He said he goes on almost weekly trips with his mentor and friend group, exploring places like Estes Park and enjoying Elitch Gardens amusement park. 

“This is the first time in my life that I’m doing this stuff. It’s good because it’s getting me out of trouble,” he said, adding that he is excited to have found boxing and hopes to become a professional boxer.

He said he hasn’t hung out with the gang members he knew since being released from juvenile detention.

Many times when Tramell Thomas, a youth advocate at Road Called Strate, delivers the SAVE letters to families, they tell him: “I didn’t know this program existed” or “I wish I had known sooner.” Road Called Strate, which has been around for 25 years, focuses on community re-entry programs for formerly incarcerated people. Thomas has been with the organization for almost three years. 

Thomas said his lived experience has been instrumental in effectively communicating with youth. When Thomas was 19, he went to prison for 10 years. 

“I’ll let them know that I’m not there to judge them, but I know how these things pan out, what the endgame looks like, but there’s other options,” he said. “It’s almost like I’m speaking to myself when I was 17 or 18 and I’m telling them something that I wish someone would have told me.”

Thomas understands why families may be hesitant around police and acknowledged that the community has a history of distrust with the police. However, he says working with police through SAVE allows him to help connect more people to services they might not have otherwise discovered or utilized. 

“It’s initially a shock, but once they hear about the program and the services we’re offering, it opens them up,” Thomas said. “I think (police presence) can be used as leverage to convey the urgency and importance of the delivery.”

Thomas said the SAVE approach is focused on providing options and promoting self-advocacy. He said the outcomes he has seen through SAVE have been “phenomenal.”

“Whenever you can exchange a gun and replace it with a (job) certification they can be proud of and utilize to provide a life for themselves, then we’re doing our job,” Thomas said.

Wanting to see the impact of SAVE for herself, Councilmember Françoise Bergan went on a July ride-along to witness the SAVE custom notification process. She went out with APD and the community nonprofit Struggle of Love.  

Bergan said the notification was done “very professionally” and she felt the interactions were positive even when the families were initially apprehensive. 

“I think it’s a good program,” Bergan said. “I think (the reduction in gun violence) can be attributed to this type of program, which really helps to target individuals that were identified as at risk for gun violence, whether they’re involved or a victim.”

In addition to Bergan, Mayor Mike Coffman and council members Stephanie Hancock and Amy Wiles have also done ride-alongs.

How much violent gun activity is in Aurora?

Bungartz said the department knows the program is working because the data backs it up.

Aurora’s non-fatal shootings are at a five-year low in 2026, following a significant decline since 2021. In 2021, there were 213 non-fatal shootings, and following a spike at 266 in 2022, there have been steady declines. In 2025, there were 102 non-fatal shootings, and in the first half of 2026, there have been 27.

The homicide rate from 2025 to 2026 has declined 59%. 

The drop mirrors a similar trend nationally. A 2026 report from the Council on Criminal Justice looked at 30 cities and found an 18% drop in homicides in the first half of 2026 compared to the first half of 2025. The report also found declines in robberies, assaults, burglaries and car thefts, though nationally there have been increases in domestic violence and sexual assault.

Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain said prevention programs like SAVE are one of many factors contributing to the city’s decline in gun violence.

“The Aurora SAVE program in and of itself is not responsible totally for all of this, but it is without question a huge component,” Chamberlain said at the July public safety committee meeting.

Looking specifically at the impact of the SAVE program, a sociology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder published a report that found the intervention prevented six fatal and non-fatal shootings in its first full year, according to an APD press release. 

The police department said data on how many SAVE recipients are suspects or victims is “hard to define.”

“For example, if they’re in a car where a gun was recovered, we custom based on their proximity to the weapon/ crime, not always the role they played,” the department said in a follow-up email.

Of the 335 SAVE recipients contacted, only 10 have faced charges for gun violence after receiving a letter, which is a 3% recidivism rate. A 2020 study of a Florida gun violence intervention program found 33.6% of its participants reoffended after one year, while the recidivism rate for non-participants was 50%.

Looking at the success of the Aurora SAVE program, Democratic candidate Sarah Woodson, who is running to represent House District 42 in the state legislature, said she is inspired to propose a statewide version. If elected, Woodson plans to introduce legislation to implement standards and funding for a state model. Woodson does not currently face a challenger in November.

Woodson said she wants to see solutions to gun violence prioritized and prevention and intervention programs are proven ways to tackle the issue.

“If we can use data and statistics to determine that African-Americans are more likely to die from gun violence or more likely to be in poverty, we should use statistics across the board to determine how to fix that,” Woodson said. “I truly believe in this program and I’m fine defending it because I’ve grown up in communities where there’s high crime and poverty.”

Woodson said she wants to hear directly from youth impacted by the program about what they would like to see and whether there’s a better way to initiate contact.

“I want to hear from the young people who experienced it about what would make it more approachable,” Woodson said. “At the end of the day, as adults, our priority is to make sure we’re providing services to children.”

Does the data support the SAVE concept?

Cities across the country are seeing a decline in gun violence when they invest in community violence intervention programs, according to an April report from the Center for American Progress.

The report found that 17 of the country’s 50 most populous cities, including Aurora, saw gun violence decline by more than 50% from 2021 to 2025. The cities with the highest declines in gun violence took similar approaches, including investing in community violence intervention programs, coordinating multi-agency responses and utilizing focused deterrence strategies.

Focused deterrence strategies match police and community resources to high-risk people, groups and places.

Between 2021 and 2025, Aurora’s gun victimization rate declined 57.4%, which is the 12th highest decline of the cities studied. The report specifically credits the decline to Aurora’s investment in community violence intervention and multi-agency prevention programs, as well as new state laws further restricting guns.

The city with the largest decline in gun violence victimization from 2021 to 2025 is San Jose, California, which dropped 71.2%. Denver also saw a decrease of 58.2%. 

The report says that all 17 cities with a decline over 50% have directly invested in community violence intervention programs.