Aurora can laud itself for eventually getting a handle on the Aug. 30 teen takeover in Hoffman Heights, but city lawmakers and community leaders lean hard into an unanswered question.
“Why did as many as 1,500 teenagers think taking over an Aurora shopping center was a good idea?”
Answering that question is just the first part of the problem. Addressing it is an even bigger challenge.
The answer has to be more than just six arrests and get-tough police statements and threats.
The problem is that an enormous crowd of young people materialized at a busy Aurora shopping center, overwhelmed businesses, flooded streets and forced more than 70 cops into action. Groups ran through King Soopers. Teenagers arrogantly climbed on tables at a Burger King. Property was damaged and merchandise was stolen.
The city and Aurora police were sandbagged by the quagmire.
This was a rapidly evolving mob of young people organized and amplified through social media, and law enforcement was left trying to corral hundreds of kids while still being responsible for the rest of the city. Police were right to point out that large gatherings are not illegal merely because they are large. They were also right that advance notice allows the city to plan rather than react.
But Aurora was reacting to a flash mob, because that’s all they can do.
Teen takeovers are no longer some bizarre phenomenon happening in Chicago or on Florida beaches. They are spreading nationally, fueled by social media, and they have now arrived here. The area had already seen a similar stunt at the Shops at Northfield last year.
City, community, state and school leaders need to abandon any fantasy that tough-sounding police pronouncements will make this disappear.
Police should absolutely identify and prosecute anyone who committed a crime. Vandalism, theft, assault and reckless behavior must have consequences. But the idea that another round of “we won’t tolerate this” declarations will somehow defeat teen takeovers is naive and dead wrong.
It won’t work. The insubordination and defiance are the thrill. The spectacle is the point. Social media rewards disruption, and teenagers seeking notoriety can turn disorder into a performance watched by thousands.
Aurora can’t arrest its way out of this culture morass.
Colorado Black Roundtable director and youth advocate John Bailey is right. These kids can be “young and dumb.” But if that’s what they are, then adults have an obligation to do something more useful than just complain about how dumb they are.
Aurora should immediately convene a serious series of town meetings and top-level discussions involving school leaders, recreation and library officials, regional recreation and arts organizations, youth and adolescent advocates, the NAACP, Adams and Arapahoe county officials, juvenile justice officials, Community College of Aurora, local sociologists and anyone else who watches and understands young people and the communities they live in.
A 2024 University of Chicago study, mirroring dozens like it, shows that adolescents involved in youth advocate programs are 39% less likely to be arrested in connection with a crime.
The evidence for promoting such programs is overwhelming. Tough talk is not.
Youth advocates have made clear that when young adolescents are bored, isolated, disconnected, left to their own devices, literally, and social-media feeds, trouble becomes entertainment.
The old political reflex of “tough on crime” and “tough love” has never been a substitute for understanding what actually changes behavior. Aurora needs to identify what works, and then have the temerity to invest in it.
Never ask those who’s “anything goes” attitudes toward individual rights and “mostly peaceful protests” how to solve social problems and cultural norms they themselves have created. Even now these individuals are fighting against tough on crime policies.