Editor: As a 35-year Aurora resident, serving as the Minister of Social Justice and Mission at Mountain View United Church in Aurora I fully support the two proposals introduced by Council Members Alison Coombs, Juan Marcano, and Crystal Murillo to 1) bar Aurora Police Department from receiving any more military-grade weapons from the 1033 program and 2) prohibit the use of chemical weapons such as tear gas and pepper balls.
These are very much needed first steps for reform of the APD.
A 2018 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of American (PNAS), showed that, “even after controlling for local crime rate, militarized police units are more often deployed and used in communities of color.” Nationwide, and here in Aurora, we are seeing the deadly consequences of our 30+ year transformation of a peaceful law enforcement force into a militarized force.
Furthermore, the study revealed that militarization provides “no detectable benefits in terms of officer safety or violent crime reduction.” However, “the routine use of militarized police tactics by local agencies threatens to increase the historic tensions between marginalized groups and the state with no detectable public safety benefit.”
My conversations with community members reveal that trust is broken between the community and the APD. Personally, I would be very hesitant to call the APD, especially if the incident involved a person of color, unless it was a grave matter of life or death.
Aurora is in a prime place to lead Colorado in enacting reasonable police reform and I call upon the Aurora City Council to pass and enact these proposals. In addition, I urge the City Council to take up action to ban the use of ketamine as the next step.
— Rev. A. Laws, via letters@sentinelcolorado.com