Not only does the Aurora have yet another shooting tragedy to bear, the city has another Aurora Police disaster on their hands in their mishandling of it.
What’s clear in the tragedy is that an Aurora boy, 14-year-old Jor’Dell Richardson, was shot dead by an Aurora police officer June 1.
Little else about the shooting, relayed by police, is clear or even credible at this point.
The Aurora Police Department debacle is yet another episode of police spin, misinformation and inconsistencies about what really happened.
It’s a calamity all too familiar for residents of Aurora. Someone is maimed, injured or killed by an Aurora police officer. The details of the incident are either withheld, sketchy or outright contrived to create a narrative in defense of police.
Ultimately, the truth drips out, making police officials look disingenuous at best and, at worst, as in the past, repugnant liars.
Meanwhile the vast majority of talented, righteous and passionate cops on the force are slandered in the tumult.
It’s unclear where Aurora’s current interim Chief Art Acevedo will land in hindsight, but his meandering commentary about this shooting so far has been catastrophic all by itself.
Acevedo came to Aurora late last year at the behest of the last interim Aurora police chief, Dan Oates, at least that’s according to one story told by police and city officials.
Oates, a former Aurora police chief, replaced former Chief Vanessa Wilson a little more than a year ago. She was unceremoniously sacked after becoming a firebrand for no-nonsense police reform in Aurora.
City officials have yet to provide a compelling explanation for Wilson’s firing.
Oates’ brief tenure was ruinous toward improving the police department’s shredded credibility.
Amid a history of virtually endless scandals and horrific episodes of police brutality, malfeasance and abuse of power, Oates last year shielded an Aurora police commander from her part in a Denver-based crime, actually promoting her to the highest ranks in the department. Outed by a Sentinel investigation and other media accounts, the police commander ultimately quit the department rather than face demotion.
Acevedo was partially credited for making right Oates’ astounding wrong.
But on June 1, just a few hours after Richardson had been shot dead by Aurora Police Officer Roch Gruszeczka, Acevedo hastily went on camera and delivered a wandering narrative clearly intended to give political cover to police for the lethal shooting of a teenager.
Acevedo haphazardly told the public that a local beat cop saw a group of teenagers wearing COVID masks and hoodies, appearing suspect.
He said the group committed an armed robbery at a convenience store, and as one of the robbers bolted as other officers rolled up, a chase ensued.
Acevedo told the public he had watched the police body camera video and had a clear picture of what happened. He said one of the cops tackled Richardson as he ran, that he had “what appeared to be” a semi-automatic handgun in his waistband, and that the cop shot the boy as he was reaching, possibly, for the weapon.
He made it clear the dead boy and others had committed an “armed robbery” of the store, stealing vape canisters, but that wasn’t known to the officers as they chased the boy. Acevedo didn’t make that clear.
Acevedo said Gruszeczka has been on the force since 2017, and that he had been assigned to the city’s gang unit in 2019.
What he withheld was that the officer was the subject of a lawsuit, accused of illegally arresting and searching a Black man during a 2018 apartment-parking lot encounter. That $100,000 lawsuit was just settled in February, the Sentinel reported.
Although Acevedo said he watched June 1 body cam video after the shooting, he withheld from the public at the time that the boy clearly appeared to have a police handcuff on one wrist at the time of the shooting.
He withheld during that first stand-up that the boy clearly told the officer that tackled him, “Stop, please, you got me.”
Acevedo said the boy was shot during a struggle, and that the boy’s gun was tossed away just after he was shot by Gruszeczka.
What he withheld — for a week — was that the boy’s pistol looked like a semi-automatic gun, but it was actually a BB gun.
Outside investigators have told the Sentinel that the gun was confiscated and placed in evidence inside the Aurora Police Department the day of the shooting.
Anyone who’s handled a real gun would be able to tell immediately that the BB gun was not a “semi-automatic” firearm, which Acevedo called it on subsequent conversations he had in public.
On Monday, Acevedo blamed Aurora police staffers for not telling him the boy had a BB gun. Staffers said Acevedo was told on Thursday, but he didn’t disclose the fact to the family until minutes before the press conferences last Friday, and that’s when he told the public.
Whether the gun was real or fake, in the chaos of the struggle it appears to have prompted the police shooting. That isn’t at issue right now in regards to the police decision to shoot the boy based on what looked to be a real gun.
Not disclosing the BB gun, however, directly undermines the police’s ability to be perceived and truthful and “transparent.”
On June 1, Acevedo talked prolifically about police transparency and how horrific the tragedy was, and that kids like Richardson act as if armed robbery is as inconsequential as a video game.
The boy had just been shot dead, yet Acevedo lamented during a rambling homily that a hard-working family running the store had been victimized, and that the officer is also a victim in the tragedy, having to live with the shooting death.
He wove a narrative, defending the shooting in what sounded like opening remarks of a trial, not an explanation of the facts by police.
Acevedo then, and days later during an even more contrived and expanded press performance, insisted this is the ultimate in police transparency.
The only thing transparent about Acevedo’s sermons is that he was intent on defending the shooting at all costs.
The “cost” was the destruction of his own credibility and that of the department and city.
The tragedy here now is that a real investigation into the shooting may well find the police homicide was either accidental or maybe in some way justified, given the chaotic nature of the events that led to it.
Acevedo’s actions so far, however, sully whatever result of an outside investigation will reveal.
The interim chief is clearly oblivious to the mile-long Aurora Police Department rap sheet of murder and mayhem. He does not fully appreciate that people of color rightfully fear encounters with Aurora police based on the history of some officers in the department, and that culture inside the department that hid it.
The State of Colorado has essentially put APD on parole through a complicated and apparently ineffective consent decree.
The demand of the Colorado Attorney General, and the public, is for Aurora police to provide real transparency and real accountability.
These spectacles are neither.
By purposely, or carelessly, withholding, twisting or outright inventing a narrative clearly intended to allow police to dodge blame and innuendo, Acevedo has done vast damage to the department and his own tenure.
The public needs and deserves an accurate, unbiased account of these kinds of incidents, and they’re aren’t getting it.
Whether he is able to undo this damage to his credibility depends on his next moves, which should be a profound apology to the family and the public for trying to sell unbridled spin as transparency to a savvy and enlightened public that knows the difference.
When the chief gave his press release last Friday the lawyer for Aurora’s latest emerging plaintiff generating the foaming of the mouths media style with his own press release.
Who buys into this lawyers performance ? Certainly the Sentinel did. Hopefully, the city council the decision makers of whats next, to accept this goofy lawyers side-show or otherwise take this head-on. Some facts, curiously omitted, and not otherwise not mentioned was the store clerks frame of mind when he was BEING ROBBED. That’s what matters, did he believe the gun was the real McCoy? He didn’t have the luxury of a BWC, and replay it 50 times before deciding to peacefully acquiesce. Ask that clerk, did it look like a BB gun or the real deal? Then tell this clerk, Oh they were just play-en store-owners and masked robbers. Whose stolen car? Was it car-jacked somewhere with a play gun too? We have a long ways to go on this. It’s not some slam- dunk as the paper would like you to buy into.
Whether he thought it was a BB gun or not is honestly immaterial. Even using a toy gun is considered aggravated robbery, and it’s a felony. You could stick your finger in your sweatshirt and say, “Give me your money” and it’s the same thing.
The store owner was a victim by the letter of the law, and here the Sentinel staff is, yet again, indicating that they are just fine with supporting the conditions that lead to dysfunctional, low-trust societies, due to their ingestion of doublethink that crime by certain demographics isn’t actually crime, but justice.
Bear in mind, back in 2018, Perry and the Sentinel staff blamed a man named Richard Black for being shot by the cops in the confusion over Black shooting a deranged tweaker who invaded his house and tried to drown his grandson in the bathroom. Their logic at the time was, “Well, Black never should have owned a gun because gun ownership is bad, and he needed to just let the tweaker try to kill his grandson until the cops could handle the situation.”
Acevedo is in a difficult spot because he seems to have figured out rather quickly that the metro area’s deranged “social justice” grifters and their in-kind mouthpieces in the local press are a bunch of special pleading jackals.
Why does reporters and staff at sentinel hate Aurora police officers. This paper is quick to condem the police and try to turn the public against the police by inflamed articles. Is it to increase circulation. If a police officer would of been shot and killed I’m sure your staff would have no problem with that. Being a police officer this day is a extremely difficult job. Your articles should be fair and balanced. I do not have any connections to any police officers or any government. I’m just a super senior citizen that is watching the breakdown of our society.
At least one outlet understands that the story APD puts out is seldom the complete story, and sadly is often a coverup to some degree.
Queue the zealots breathlessly justifying the killing of a 14-year-old in three, two, one…
I would like to thank the Sentinel for its measured critique of the police department and for offering constructive criticism followed by suggestions on how to move forward as a community. I would like to, but cannot since the Sentinel offers all it has ever offered, which is negativity, no constructive suggestions.
The Sentinel defines transparency as getting information out fast and correct. The Sentinel needs to understand there can be one or the other, fast or correct, but it is unlikely there will be both. Pity the police who, if they take longer to gather the facts than the Sentinel deems, in their ignornace of police procedure, to be warranted, gets criticised. Pity them for trying to be accurate. In this case they were fast, but incomplete.
In this instance it was the police, themselves, who supplemented the record. They did not hide anything, They simply had much to do, notifying the next of kin, placing the officer on administrative leave, notifying the shooting team from the district attorney’s office, securing the scene and interviewing witnesses, notifying the attorney general under the consent decree. They did not provide lies or try to cover things up, they simply, early on in the investigation, did not have the entire story correctly before the Chief.
Agreed.
Do right all the time, every time? Agents of law and order should undoubtedly be held to a higher standard than JQ Public, but this editorial comes across with expectations of perfection and the notion that transparency is a binary proposition. APD can only 100% transparent or they’re not transparent at all.
I’m encouraged by the overall tone of the replies posted in the first 24hrs; I expected more rhetorical shouting and knee-jerk bromides.
WOW!! Your editorial sounds and reads something like Trump and his folks would spin. Shame on your editorial team! But, it’s your paper and the First Amendment allows you to publish it so, I hope your viewing audience can read between the lines.
“Anyone who’s handled a real gun would be able to tell immediately that the BB gun was not a “semi-automatic” firearm, which Acevedo called it on subsequent conversations he had in public.”
Really? “Immediately”? I’ve handled many handguns in my day. I’ve also handled replica firearms. The replicas I’ve handled were virtually indistinguishable from the original, actual firearms they were based on. And in the heat of a chase and an arrest, it is ludicrous to expect an officer to stop and say “Excuse me, could you tell me if that’s a real gun?”
A cop doesn’t have the luxury of time when confronted with a robbery suspect who appears armed with a deadly weapon and the will to use it. Any claim the officer should have known it wasn’t a “real” gun is preposterous.
Jesus divisive much? I’ll just say this, the paper may be bias. It is no doubts their. However they’re blaming the right people. I wonder if this was handled by even wet from basic training national guard recruits, if their would have been loss of life. If cops are constantly so worried about loss of their own life maybe they should try and be more tactical than a 14yr old…