Bending a solid maxim, those in Aurora who fail to admit and accept the police department’s appalling history will condemn the department to perpetuate it.
There are many inside the department, and outside, who refuse to recognize how justified intense state scrutiny is of the Aurora Police Department.
Fortunately, however, a growing number of police and city leaders have worked to expose bad cops, bad management and bad policies that have ruined lives, credibility and the ability for the community to trust the Aurora Police Department.
Last month, Aurora unveiled a critical and long-overdue endeavor to offer the public some clarity in how the department and its officers operate. The new online “transparency portal” is an important step in the right direction, but there is far more work to do and still unmade structural changes to the department.
A work in progress, the portal — at AuroraGov.org/APDPortal — offers a month-by-month and year-by-year look at crime, the demographics of the police department, and, most importantly, a look at police incidents involving “the use of force.”
The state attorney general’s office requires Aurora to reveal incidents of force, who uses it, why and against whom.
The requirement stems from data that makes clear that people of color are substantially more likely to be not just subject to Aurora police use of force when they come in contact with officers, but they’re far more likely to be victims of excessive, and sometimes deadly, excessive force.
Aurora police find themselves internationally notorious for a catalog of shocking abuses, notably the death of Elijah McClain, the pistol whipping of a young Black man, as well as the abuse of Black girls and women who were forced to lie face down on hot pavement during an erroneous arrest.
The list of atrocities committed by some members of the department are infamous. Cops have been rehired after being caught on video referring to people of color as “porch monkeys.” Another was passed out drunk in a squad car. These and other episodes have for years met with a department eager and committed to keeping its iniquities quiet.
That makes this initial foray into online transparency critically important.
The transparency portal does indeed provide some important details, counting how many times police record using some type of force against subjects during confrontations.
The portal best aggregates data, making trends in crime and associated police interaction clearer.
But the project is not complete, nor does it easily compile meaningful analyses.
As it operates now, the portal lists the individual incidents of when police use force while encountering the public, but it doesn’t provide any mechanism for context that could importantly reveal trends or an understanding of confrontations.
Both police and the public would likely agree that an overall reduction in the incidence of the use of force would be good for everyone. But it would be more meaningful for police and the public to understand which officers use force most frequently and under what circumstances.
This online portal may not be capable of that kind of illumination.
That’s why transparency alone won’t solve Aurora’s police reform challenge. There must be accountability.
Not only must the city and police department comply with requirements for policy change, training and retraining, but it must be independently scrutinized to ensure the department is monitoring every officer’s behavior and addressing dangerous or non-compliant officers appropriately, either through training or dismissal.
Oversight and accountability cannot come from inside the department or the city. It certainly cannot come from a consultant who’s being paid by the agency it must objectively scrutinize. Even the most transparent and above-board agreement would not survive the appearance of impropriety.
Aurora must create an independent, citizen commission or panel to guide oversight and issue reliable, trusted reports to the community, based on this growing transparency. City and police leaders must quit defending bad police policy and officers. They must accept and stipulate that the old way is the wrong way. They must admit that accountability, at least for now, must come from outside the agency.
No other mechanism can bridge the absent trust police must work to earn back. Nothing.
Transparency about how APD operates is a good thing. The problems lie in a couple factors. First, real transparency would show that the department administration has been incompetent and self serving for a long time. They lack the knowledge, the integrity, and the courage to be good police leaders. They have been complicit, and often directly responsible, for any failures at APD. Failure to ethically lead is the most common shortcoming that we see in the politically motivated police “leaders” of today. It is their responsibility to give officers the training and equipment to do the job. It is also their responsibility to establish a culture of ethical behavior and respect toward the citizens and each other. While they play politics and use favoritism within their agencies, they destroy both ethical and competent behavior. There are so many events that have occurred with APD that any objective person would realize point toward incompetence and a lack of professional ethics. I could list a great many, but space and my wife won’t allow it. An officer was fired for ignoring the pleas of a female prisoner who fell down onto the rear seat floorboard when she was being transported in restraints. Although he was wrong and was fired, there was more to the incident. We had pled for many years for a more practical and humane way to transport “fighters” who were restrained. Stuffing someone who is “bound” but often still struggling into the backseat of a patrol car is difficult for everyone. After the incident hit the news, it was suddenly possible to find better transportation. All those years of telling them it was a problem were ignored. If we had a shield in every patrol car, and the officers were required to consider their use, we could save a number of lives. I tried to get that accomplished many years ago. A number of high profile deaths could have been prevented. The grandfather who was erroneously shot by officers might still be with us. The use of shields requires that the leaders be able to explain how lives could be saved and also to be able to stand up to the activists’ cries that it is too militaristic. The lack of any real crowd control knowledge and restraint was aptly demonstrated by former chief Vanessa Wilson when she over reacted with the peaceful part of the crowd at the City Center and then grossly under reacted when demonstrators trashed the City’s buildings. Ask them how they will handle crowds now? What have they learned? I had previously sent an email to City Council advising them of Chief Wilson’s lack of knowledge about crowd control and suggesting that they ask her what her plans were for protecting both the city buildings and the businesses. Crickets.
Now, unlike what this article implies, much of the problem lies with the failure of the police leadership to stand up to oppose distortions about the department. Putting black children down on the ground at gunpoint was certainly poor judgment and adherence to policy without much thought. It was not racist. A lack of training. Ask the chief how that could have been done better? What did they learn? If they had to make the stop, how could it have been done better when they saw the children and doubt crept in? The death of Elijah McClain was tragic. It was not racist and not criminal. The witch hunt that the Attorney General pushed managed to snare a mixed bag of public servants who were trying to do a job. The damage to public service is tremendous. The famous pistol whipping emotional video that is constantly distorted. The officers were charged before any significant investigation was done. A Vanessa Wilson political move. How do you charge the officers without any significant interview with either them or the suspect (victim)? How do you charge the officers before you even pick up the other videos from businesses that show a different picture? How do you simply call the suspect a trespasser when he is a drug addict in possession of numerous pills and is wanted on a felony warrant whose basis is a crime of violence. The two wanted felons with him had warrants that advised caution. Even the extremely poor arrest affidavit by the detective says that the suspect resisted arrest and admits that the suspect swatted at the officer’s gun twice before he was hit. The officer at the scene told the sergeant that the suspect had tried to take his gun. The law is clear that when your life or another life is in jeopardy, you can use deadly force. Deadly force in Colorado means that the person dies. The officer used less than deadly force and had few options with his gun in his hand. The affidavit and sham investigation say that the suspect offered no real resistance and posed no real threat. The other videos completely contradict that. They show a three minute struggle with the suspect repeatedly grabbing the officer’s gun. How do you then let the female officer be convicted of failure to intervene by not producing the other videos in court? So, with this supposed transparency, we must have people with knowledge and integrity who will go through these events with the public in a way that gives the same fairness that I expect an officer to give anyone suspected of a crime. Right now, we have political jellyfish for police leaders. Further, we have a legislature that has made a vague law that governs police use of force. Police leaders are not standing up. They are willing to leave their officers in a perilous situation. After all, the public won’t know that the law is flawed and that the police leaders are responsible for failure to train, equip, or guide their people. So, transparency must also mean that there are responsible and knowledgeable leaders who can fairly defend and interpret what the public sees. The public should still see it all. But, these emotional mob judgments must be tempered by facts. I am sorry that that might interfere with the “narrative” the exist today.
Don, to a great extent the public does not care about your problems. I think in future you will be lucky to not to be shot be in the face for pulling someone over for speeding. These people aren’t your “traditional” enemies. They probably live next door to you. No amount of training, supervision or professional ethics will change this. You do have one advantage in that those that employ you (taxpayers) will often be okay with you or anybody else beating the cr** out of someone for any reason, as long as it isn’t them. If it is them, they will record the interaction and sue you personally and the odds are good that they will win that lawsuit. I agree that, because of cost, and because working police are very low on the food chain, that any hope of government providing defense is long gone. If police continue to do this job, I strongly suggest they watch their back. No telling who is carrying a gun and who might stab you in the neck. It may be grandpa, grandma or little junior, who has dad’s 9MM in his pocket. The people that you are dealing with, to a large extent, are insane. All bets are off.
Strange
The public committees of the past put together by the City has been stacked by the most part of black radicals, socialists, and police haters. Citizens who have any knowledge of good policing policies never seem to make the cut.
Citizen oversight can work but if you only bring in one side it just brings chaos and does nothing positive. I’ve tried to volunteer for the past two of these committee’s with no response. I no longer wonder why.
Don – I was a Commissioner on the CSC when Huffine appealed his termination for the improper treatment and transport of the young African American female who was in the backseat of his patrol car. I don’t think your commentary implies that upholding the termination was unfair or unjust. And you are right, after this incident an effort was made by APD to find a more humane and safe methodology to transport individuals under restraint. I do need to add some additional factual background about what happened. The young lady’s head was pinned under Huffines’s seat. She was not just laying on the floorboard of the back seat. She pleaded for help during the 20 minute or so ride to the jail. The officer ignored her and in my opinion as a Commissioner I never understood why he just did not pull over and properly secure her. This would have been plain common sense and the humanitarian thing to do. I call BS when someone says this was not how I was trained in the police academy, You are very clear in your low regard for Vanessa Wilson. However, she was right on point when she testified Huffine is lucky a serious injury that could have been fatal did not occur. If you are interested in accessing the Decision Order that is public record I suggest you read it if you want to be fully informed about what went down.
I know the details. I did not in any way mean to defend the actions of the officer. I understand what happens when dealing with these difficult people under difficult conditions. In training officers, we hammer them about emotional control and the consequences of losing that control. That, however, does not relieve those in charge from giving the officers the equipment to do the job safely. It is their responsibility. It is not the job of the officers to have to beg for the things that would protect the public and the officers. Having watched the police administrations operate, including Vanessa Wilson, I can tell you how it works. You explain to them the consequences of their failure to act many times, orally and in writing. They express no concern for the risks to the public or the officers. They tell you that they are not worried about civil suits because it comes out of the general fund and not their budget. They privately express that they don’t care about the danger. When it finally goes bad and makes the press, as predicted by the officer, they leap into action. They say that no one could have predicted that it would happen and they create a committee to study the problem. The committee comes up with the same solution that the officer proposed. The Chief is then lauded for being progressive and accepting the committee recommendation. It works for them and you don’t know the difference.
The Uvalde shooting investigation said that if they had shields earlier, they could have saved more kids. I have been telling them that for decades. I just watched Bouider PD on TV doing active shooter drills. No shields. Having been in combat, I could give a dissertation on the realities that slap you in the face when your mortality is made clear to you.The public is not aware that many of their police leaders have kept law enforcement almost one hundred years behind on police tactics. Members of the public don’t know enough to hold the police leaders accountable for their incompetence and indifference. I do appreciate your input.