The Aurora police department’s greatest impediment to restoring badly needed public trust is a consistent and pervasive lack of transparency and candor as officers carry out duties, and too often become the center of some crisis.
The grand jury indictment this week of Aurora police officer Matthew Neely on murder charges in connection with the 2025 fatal shooting death of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield during a traffic stop exemplifies the ongoing problem at APD.
Aside from the fact that, clearly, officers have not all been successfully trained to avoid shooting and killing people of color they encounter in their duties, the department continues to cloud the public’s understanding of such shootings as they unravel.
This is a police department still under a state-mandate to fix problems that led to the determination that it has shown “patterns and practices” of using excessive force, especially on people of color.
This is a police department responsible for the grisly death of Elijah McClain. This is a department that clearly failed to successfully arrest Kilyn Lewis during a formulated encounter, and instead, fatally shot him because an officer mistook Lewis’ cell phone for a gun.
Aurora has paid out tens of millions of dollars in court settlements to families of Black people wrongly maimed or killed during interactions with Aurora officers. The burden continues to rest with the Aurora police department to prove to the public that all of its officers are capable of handling the difficult job of police work without regularly killing Black people during the course of duty.
It has yet to do that.
Instead, just days after Belt-Stubblefield was fatally shot, as he clearly harassed Neely during an encounter watched by numerous witnesses as it unfolded, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain defended Neely, saying that choices made by Belt-Stubblefield led to his shooting death.
In essence, Chamberlain told the public, he had it coming.
Clearly, an Arapahoe County grand jury, having seen all the evidence, disagreed.
Jurors agreed that, despite claims by Neely and APD, Belt-Stubblefield did not threaten Neely.
Within hours after the shooting, Chamberlain called a press conference to dispense details of the shooting, and much more.
“We are not going to hold back anything,” Chamberlain told reporters last September. “I ask the community to please realize we are going to provide real and factual information, and I ask for their support in this process.”
Immediately, Chamberlain held back the identity of the officer involved in the shooting. Sentinel sources unofficially identified Neely as a veteran cop who had previously been the subject of police, court and Sentinel investigations questioning his veracity and behavior.
While Chamberlain did provide some clear and factual details about the shooting, much of what he provided was conjecture.
Chamberlain repeatedly insisted his assumptions and conjecture were “facts” even before any real “facts” were gleaned and examined by an outside agency that is not under investigation for wrongly killing Black people it encounters.
Shooting-incident video made public by bystanders reveals what appears to be a heated argument between Belt-Stubblefield and the officer. At one point, the officer takes a swing at the man, hitting him in the face with the punch.
Chamberlain said the punch was the officer’s attempt to “de-escalate” what he described as a stand-off.
Police training experts say that officers are, indeed, trained to punch people in the face, but not as a “de-escalation” technique, rather as a critical maneuver to prevent a catastrophic event.
The misinformation turned out by APD during these crises undermines real efforts to restore good policing and credibility to the department.
The bottom line is that some of the people killed by Aurora police behaved wrongly and sometimes even criminally.
Clearly, neither the department nor the city’s elected officials and management has the will or power to make this self-destructive behavior stop. It not only undermines the city and department, it detracts from the credibility of the vast majority of Aurora police officers, who professionally and compassionately serve the community.
State lawmakers should step in and create a statewide regulation and system that prevents Aurora, and all police and sheriff departments in the state, from being the public face of officer-involved deaths. Currently, the state provides for Critical Incident Response Teams to, partially, independently investigate deaths caused by police. The Legislature should modify that system to ensure that an outside agency, such as the state attorney general’s office, acts as public spokesperson after these incidents and ensures the media and public get frank, accurate and timely answers to questions.
Aurora police must accept the reality that when an officer in Aurora, or anywhere, kills someone, the officer, and in Aurora’s case, the department, are suspects and parties to a potential crime.
While they, too, deserve the benefit of the doubt and rights to proper adjudications, they are in no way immune to the rule of law.
We all saw the video, and if we can assume it was not altered or AI generated, the officer showed incredible patience before using force against the out-of-control assailant. I have to ask myself if the victim would have behaved similarly if an average citizen held a gun on him and ordered him around. I don’t think so.
There seems to be a pattern going on here related to problems with authority figures. Some believe it is related to a lack of father figures in the home as 70% of young Blacks have none while growing up. Maybe there are some cultural factors involved as well. But these are far more complex issues to address and it is much easier to avoid any responsibility and instead blame it on racism or lack of training. But this is a mistake and will only lead to individuals pushing the limits further and further regardless of restraint being used. And it does not go unnoticed that in today’s world, you or your family has a better chance of getting rich by assaulting a police officer than by playing the lottery.
If you haven’t figured out that the training is a problem, you are an example of the fact that the legislature, the DA’s, police administrators, and the public are grossly ignorant about police use of force. APD’s recent prosecution of a detention officer who was trying to control a drug crazed prisoner who had just punched another officer is an example of how ill informed APD is and how politically correct the DA’s office has been in this miscarriage of justice. An officer they charged a few years ago without even picking up the videos that eventually cleared the officer is a prime example of the incompetence exhibited by the top levels of APD. If the State gets involved, considering the ridiculous guidelines they have already created for the police, who knows what will happen.
It is insane that the officer in this case is literally being tried for murder. That is a permanent disgrace on our entire society that such a trial should be undertaken. Shame on every single person even remotely associated with pushing for this. Maybe the officer should have suggested they go get a donut and coffee to discuss whatever was bothering the fine upstanding citizen who just crashed his vehicle into other innocent people and then went on a rampage after jumping out of the car with a gun.
Great editorial. The only problem with the Sentinel’s stories on the police is that they give a platform to comments like the ones above. In case the victim’s famiiy sees these stories, it would be kind to have a “no comments” policy.
What victim are you talking about? The people whose lives were endangered by a violent drunk driver who showed zero concern for their safety? The guy who got shot richly deserved it. He was advancing on an armed officer intent on attacking him while instructing his son to pick up the weapon he discarded ostensibly so he could shoot the officer. This is another case of the bodycam proving the officers innocence. The irony must be palpable to those who clamored for the use of bodycams convinced they would prove the myth of police brutality.
Sounds like the real solution is to give the city’s leftists what they want, which is to “abolish the police,” and simply not send any cops north of Mississippi Avenue for any reason whatsoever. Once the animals start exterminating each other, it will be a self-correcting problem.
Very clearly the officer did everything he could reasonably be expected to do to avoid shooting the guy. Likewise, the guy did everything in his power to force the officer to shoot him. This is a complete miscarriage of justice by a DA bent on punishing police for doing their job. The facts could not be more clear. This shooting, while tragic, was completely justified and the officer should be cleared with the thanks of the community which he serves.