A police department decimated by seemingly endless stories of drunken, lying, physically abusive, racist, discredited cops wants to make it easier to hire people to be cops who have been caught or convicted of some of those behaviors.
What could go wrong?
While the notion on some levels doesn’t ring the alarm bells as one of the worst ideas ever, there’s no getting away from the fact that Aurora just cannot avoid the appearance of being one of the nation’s law enforcement dumpster fires.
Although it seems that some city and police leaders have forgotten, the Aurora Police Department has been forced into a bevy of reforms, which must be supervised and guaranteed by the Colorado Attorney General.
An investigation by state AG officials determined that Aurora police have shown “patterns and practices” of police abusing members of the public and then working to hide multiple instances of that abuse from the public.
In short, for years, Aurora police have egregiously indulged in a lack of accountability and transparency.
Elijah McClain was killed at the hands of Aurora police and medics, and some of those officers are charged with his murder. The police department obscured an incident involving a cop so drunk in his police car that he passed out and had to be rescued by fellow officers.
A current top commander became intertwined in a domestic violence and divorce incident involving another Aurora police officer. Together, they violated police department regulations and principles. The commander was not only absolved by an interim police chief, but promoted. The public is aware of the scandal only because the media outed it.
This is a police department that arguably requires federal intervention to stop the onslaught of perversion of the need to serve and protect.
These repeated gaffes and crimes not only make the public fearful and suspicious, but all of this impugns the hundreds of Aurora police officers who exhibit integrity and professionalism with every shift they work.
Just last week, police revealed that an officer likely used excessive force while trying to subdue a Black man inside a local hospital — in August of last year. In a video posted Friday by police, an Aurora officer suddenly slams a handcuffed man to the ground causing the man’s head to bleed profusely while leading him out of the hospital.
After releasing the video and announcing an internal investigation into the incident, police officials announced that they were changing APD procedures by being transparent about such startling events. That’s welcome news but draws attention to when the policy, official or not was changed again.
After years of concealment, former police Chief Vanessa Wilson was scorned by police union officials and their city council supporters for immediately making very public a handful of allegations of abuse or malfeasance, including one incident of an officer pistol whipping a Black man.
This new announcement, without explanation, only draws attention back to the department’s problems with credibility and transparency because the police chief leading the effort for accountability was fired after promoting the policy the city is now lauding.
If that was APD’s policy a year ago, why is it that this flagrant episode of abuse was not reported to the public for nearly six months after it occurred?
Conflicting stories like this don’t elicit public confidence in allowing the city’s civil service commission to waive critical conditions of employment at APD.
Proponents say the changes would allow for qualified and quality police candidates to have a chance to get hired who otherwise were excluded for past behaviors that really have no bearing on the ability to serve and protect.
The city, like hundreds of others, is hard pressed to find qualified police recruits or hires. Hiring standards is not Aurora’s problem, past city and police management is.
Maybe. It’s hard to argue that legally using marijuana should be a reason for exclusion as a policy officer in Colorado. The same goes for traffic and other misdemeanor infractions committed years before application.
One condition for exclusion police want to overlook, however, should raise red flags for any police department, but especially this one.
The change allows candidates whose backgrounds include “dishonesty and/or integrity issues” to make the grade at APD and don a gun and badge.
While the philosophy of assessing the “whole person” for a job is defensible, blanket acceptance of integrity issues is essentially the foundation of the problems at APD, not the solution.
The public can and should expect police officers to be held to a higher standard than water quality engineers. Their veracity and integrity is what the public depends on in fairly policing the community — and fellow officers.
Drag racing as a teenager can be absolved with maturity and experience. Lying about critical issues is not just a problem of weak character, it’s anathema to criminal justice.
Even if Aurora was years down the road in successfully reforming its police department and restoring public confidence, allowing for liars and cheaters to become police officers is a genuinely bad idea.
The Aurora Police Department, whose credibility has been decimated by concealing toxic integrity issues, is in no position to offer jobs to applicants who did or do suffer the same problem. The line has to be drawn at veracity and integrity, which APD currently lacks.
While I will agree for once with Dave Perry’s assessment of lowering standards, I take issue with his facts concerning the use of force. I will agree that APD has had an issue with integrity. That problem with integrity has been greatest at the top of the organization. In the Department, we watched a continuous succession of top police administrators who were groomed through favoritism and who were willing to lie to protect their bosses. I had friends who were in Internal Affairs who told me that when they investigated someone who was not liked by the administration they were told what outcome they should establish. If they came to a fair conclusion that did not fit the desired outcome by admin, they were told to go back and redo the investigation until they came to the desired outcome.
As a Sergeant and a Lieutenant, I saw this same lack of ethics and integrity constantly exhibited by my superiors. They covered for their buddies. They went after anyone who ever questioned or disagreed with them. In one case, I reported a Lieutenant who was trying to backdate comments in a minority officer’s file to cover himself and his Sergeant in an investigation into racial bias against minority officers. I gave the information to an investigator whom I felt I could trust. The outcome was that the Lieutenant’s punishment was that he promised not to test for Captain for a year. There was no official punishment and nothing noted on his record. After a year, he tested and became a Captain and my supervisor. After becoming my supervisor, he had the nerve to come into my office and ask me what I thought of him. When he was a Sergeant, the whole SWAT team had complained about his use of force and his people tearing up people’s property on drug raids. I had to take it forward and the Internal Affairs guy gave it only a brief examination before they erased all evidence of it. Anyway, when he asked my opinion of him, I gave it to him. I told him that he was a piece of doo doo and should be in jail, but I had to work with him so I would. In one case, one of my superiors slapped one of my officers in briefing. I was off the day it happened. When I returned, I initiated an investigation. My superior lied about it on tape. When I forwarded it up the chain, it was quickly called a misunderstanding and there was no discipline for the senior officer who had struck my officer.
I could go on for a long time. This type of unethical leadership is not uncommon in law enforcement, just as it is not uncommon in the outside world. It is damaging to the whole organization. These same administrators lie to you and tell you that their officers are well trained. The truth is that the officers get about one quarter of the use of force training that they should have before going out on the street. When we showed them how they could give more training, they disregarded it. The Chief’s office is the first one to throw them to the wolves when they make a mistake that comes to the public’s attention.
Let us look at honesty in the reporting and handling of these incidents. Look at the picture of the suspect who got pistol whipped that is included in this article. He was not a trespassing suspect at the time that he was hit. He was a person wanted on a felony warrant who was with two others who were wanted on felony warrants who had been doing drugs outside the business. The warrants on two of them said “caution”. The person in the picture was wanted on a probation violation for strangulation. He resisted arrest right from the start. He grabbed for the officer’s gun before he was hit. He continued to resist the entire time and at several points the officer had to rip his gun out of the suspect’s hand. The public only saw the emotional bodycam that is up close and does not show the real action. The detective, presumably at the direction of Chief Vanessa Wilson, filed charges before any statement had been taken from either the officers or the suspect. The suspect (victim) did not want to talk to the detectives. He knew that he would incriminate himself. There was another video that showed the true nature of the struggle and the suspect’ s resistance. The detective filed charges against the officer before even picking the video up from the witnesses. It made for great political theater for Chief Wilson and destroyed the careers of two officers trying to do their jobs. Now, that is integrity.
The Elijah McClain death was a tragedy, but was not criminal. The officers did not torture Elijah as has been stated in prior Sentinel issues. The video shows that the officers followed their training and called for rescue before Elijah was even handcuffed. A medical expert has said that nothing the officers did caused Elijah’s death. Political pressure caused the officers to be charged even though the first review by the Department and the DA cleared the officers.
At any rate, it is humorous how all the prior lessons can be disregarded by the left. Race can be used to do away with all prior restrictions and justify any type of logic. But, in short, I agree with Dave Perry. This makes no sense. But, the consent decree and the police reform bill made no sense. By the way, notice that no Chief has questioned the police reform bill that has driven thousands of officers out of police work. That is the integrity that I am talking about. How would you like to work for those guys?
Tell us why the police needed to stop Elijah McClain in the first place before they supposedly followed their training?
There is always a subjective evaluation that is part of reasonable suspicion. They were called on a suspicious person by a citizen. Could they have taken more time to evaluate how suspicious he was? Probably. Would there have been a problem if Elijah had simply stopped when told to do so by the officers. Probably not. Tragic, but not criminal. Around the country we have the same thing happening. People running and resisting when stopped by the police. We seem to think that is okay. I will go with that as long as you understand that none of the laws will be enforced. If you accept that none of the laws will be enforced, then okay. That suspicious guy outside of the grade school, the DUI driver, the wife beater, the suspicious guy outside of the ATM, the aggressive homeless guy at the store, all can go unchallenged. Officers have actually been told to ignore everything and not to get into any type of struggle. We now want to no longer enforce minor violations because more people of color are being stopped. At some point, we have to say that we expect everyone to obey the laws. We have to teach people that it is not okay to fail to stop for the police or to fight them. We have to hold people accountable for their actions. We can’t just say that the police are at fault when people run and fight. There were reasons for the laws that make it illegal to resist arrest or to obstruct police or fire personnel. But, we have to make a choice as a society. If your choice is to demonize the police and make everything legal, okay. Live with it. We don’t want police in the schools because some students might feel uncomfortable. Okay, fine. Live with the deaths of students. Make a choice. if we protect everyone from every insult and uncomfortable feeling, what do they do when they face the real world? Do they then commit suicide because they cannot deal with any criticism or insult. Why are we surprised when they kill others out of anger since they never learned to deal with any conflict or insult. We need to make some realistic choices.
Members of the Citizens’ Advisory Budget Committee have heard one phrase repeatedly from various city departments: “We make do.” This is in response to basic questions related to operating with a wholly inadequate budget.
Terminating and replacing a bad apple is expensive. Is it any wonder that APD has more than a few pieces of rotted fruit still in the ranks?
“We make do.”
So long as Denver’s retail, dining and entertainment burns 59% hotter than Aurora’s, residents should expect further failures with city services. It’s lunacy to expect anything but.
“We make do” is the official motto of your city government. It doesn’t have to be this way but so long as your city council continues to ignore the retail, dining and entertainment problem, nothing will improve.
City Council would rather have our cultural tax dollars go to feed Denver’s gluttony. You see, state party leadership sets the priorities— not us. In their minds, Aurora’s supposed to remain a S___hole.
This is why we start electing non-partisan moderates to council so a bright light can be brought to shine on this circus. Such moderates would approach the recruiting challenge with a focus on building up APD’s competitive advantage in the labor market — not tearing the standards down.
The Denver SCFD district collects over $7 million per year in Aurora and after 30+ years, we have the Fox Theater. Thank the Dems and GOP both for the 30+ years of economic sodomy that’s been inflicted on our city. They own it.
What happens when you loosen the purse strings (taxpayer funds) to buy more cops without fixing the problems in their org culture? They make more doo-doo.
Not only should dishonest people without integrity be prohibited from applying to the APD (or anywhere), but this decision also allows people who put false and misleading information on their applications to still be considered. I so agree with this editorial – gee…what could go wrong, especially in a place like Aurora that does not have it’s policing recruitment/training/performance act together and is not trying to make real changes.
Get on the board
In an ideal world, it would be wonderful to screen out bad apples before they get to market. Unfortunately, in this situation, just because an applicant doesn’t have a police record, that may only mean that the applicant hasn’t been caught. Who among us has never driven over the speed limit? I’d rather hire someone who understands what they have done wrong in the past and really wants to do right than to hire someone who has just been lucky enough not to be caught and thinks they are above the law.
I find myself offended by me for having to agree with Dave Perry. He is such a liberal jerk face, but we do have common ground on this one. I am aligned more so with Don Black, not only because he is the voice of reason on this one, but because he is right. The “agency” has fallen so far, it is difficult to absorb the long – term consequences. I mourn the loss of an agency that once upon a time, was above reproach.
They started dumbing down promotions when they first went to the appointed “commander” rank, and got rid of college degrees for Lieutenants for support of the new use of force directives. I knew a LT candidate who flunked the test, but his buddy the acting chief threw out the exact questions he needed to make a 70…..that is the system at APD
Report to CM and Mayor
I’ve read all these comments and as usual not one solution offered. Just complaining over and over. Maybe it’s just human nature. Maybe there is no answer. Make the entrance requirements so steep no one can be hired. Or raise the pay to a 100k a year then everyone applies. Chief Wilson was firing the bad apples and got herself fired. So what is the answer??
Let me reiterate a solution, Doug:
“This is why we start electing non-partisan moderates to council so a bright light can be brought to shine on this circus. Such moderates would approach the recruiting challenge with a focus on building up APD’s competitive advantage in the labor market — not tearing the standards down.”
There is no reforming or helping APD. The cancer is so deep in the agency it can never return to the great department it was decades ago. Internal dissolve, and the external pressures on law enforcement, have forever changed the department. The city has given big raises to the officers, but officers are starting to realize money isn’t worth the risks of working for APD. Good applicants value their sanity and life so they apply elsewhere. Only the misguided join APD for whatever reason. It is reflective when the academy classes have less than ten people in the class. Lowering standards will only bring more troubles to APD. APD is the next Memphis…
Just found this which I think relates:
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Dozens arrested in fiery clashes at Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ training center
Dozens arrested in fiery clashes at Atlanta’s ‘Cop City’ training center
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It doesn’t matter as much who comes in the bottom, it matters who the leaders are at the top. APD has promoted bad leaders (Temp chief excluded, to soon to tell). When the department changed from Community Policing Leadership to SWAT/Tactical Leadership, it changed the whole direction of the department. And now APD is paying that price. I knew a LT who pointed this out to Chief Metz at the time of the changing of the chiefs, but it fell on deaf ears.
SWAT/Tactical officers should never be allowed to run a department, LAPD Rampart Station is a clear example of why not…..