If there’s one thing that seems to bind Aurora police and the community, it’s tears.
Saving people, defending police, abusing minorities and trying to change all of this is clearly emotional stuff.
Art Acevedo, who stepped down Monday as Aurora’s third interim police chief in little more than a year, was verklempt a few times as he made the rounds among admirers at city hall and stood before them to say goodbye.
There were well over 100 people who turned out to a hastily called ceremony bidding Acevedo so long, and welcoming the city’s fourth interim chief, Heather Morris.
After the tears, the lapel pinnings and the swearing-in, Acevedo got a standing ovation from fellow officers, a handful of city lawmakers and those who received the announcement and could make it on Monday morning.
Absent from the event were those who also have cried because of their connection to Aurora police.
Sheneen McClain wasn’t there. She wept openly just a couple weeks ago as the trials against the cops and medics who killed her son, Elijah McClain in 2019, ended with mixed verdicts and results.
Jor’Dell Richardson’s brother, mom and friends have shed many tears in public during the last several months. They’ve cried after the 14-year-old boy was shot dead by an Aurora police officer who tackled Richardson after he ran from an apparent shop-lifting-robbery.
Many tears were shed in 2020 by three young Black girls forced by Aurora police to lie face down on hot asphalt. Even former Aurora police Chief Vanessa Wilson became nearly overcome with emotion in 2020, as she described the horror of discovering that two Aurora officers parodied the lethal choking of Elijah McClain with selfies.
But other police have recently become overcome with emotion about the work they do on the Aurora police force.
Aurora’s new interim Chief Morris joked about her own tears Monday as she passionately recalled her past seven years working with Acevedo at three different police departments.
“If I cry right now, I just want everyone to know that everybody here has to sign a non-disclosure statement,” Morris said, halting to regain her composure as she chuckled at herself, fanning her eyes with her speech notes.
She recalled when she first met Acevedo when he took the top job in Houston. He told her, and other Houston command staff, “I’m here to do a job, not get a job.”
Morris said the announcement was profound to her, signaling his commitment to do what’s right, not what’s easy or popular. She liked that.
Acevedo said those same words to reporters and editors here in Aurora during one of his regular meetings with the media.
The veteran police officer and chief fires off quips and tough-talk almost constantly, along with well-aimed flashes of charisma.
Acevedo is absolutely a people person. He’s brash to the point of being brazen.
“I am the type of guy who would rather apologize afterward instead of ask for permission before,” he told me not long after we met last year.
I, along with all of Aurora, saw that firsthand.
After weeks of lamenting how Aurora police had in the past bungled explosive incidents between Aurora officers and people of color, he acted on his own hunch after the death of Jor’Dell Richardson. He had to walk it back after.
Just a few hours after Richardson was shot dead during a struggle with the cop trying to arrest him, Acevedo held a press conference gushing unconfirmed details and, tragically, leaving out a critical fact.
Acevedo said Richardson had and was reaching for a gun when he was shot, inferring that the cop was acting in self-defense.
It was days and days later during another press conference that Acevedo acknowledged that Richardson had a pellet gun, not a firearm.
Investigators and prosecutors made clear that, in the heat of the struggle between Richardson and the cop, the distinction was lost. It looked like a deadly handgun. Prosecutors agreed. The cop was not charged.
But withholding the facts of the case drew mountains of criticism and prompted calls for Acevedo’s resignation.
He stayed.
It’s hardly the first time Acevedo has traipsed through controversy of his own making.
“I’m not sure I’d hire myself, because I’m well-known for speaking my mind,” Acevedo told Texas Monthly writer Keri Blakinger in February 2020 while he mused in the magazine take-out about familiar controversies as police chief in Houston.
Past controversy ricocheted again on Tuesday. Last week, Acevedo tearfully talked about heading back to Austin to be with his wife and son, whom he missed deeply. On Monday, he announced he would take a leadership role for Austin police, where he once worked. On Tuesday, he announced he turned down the job because of “politics and power struggles.”
Aurora is no stranger to politics and power struggles.
For the last few months, he’s regularly pressed the media to report progress that Aurora Police is making on hiring more women and with training cops to be sensitive to issues revolving around racism and the use of force.
He made the mistake so many cops and their supporters make in assuming that everyone should trust cops because they’re cops. In the world we live in now, cops need to prove to Aurora, and especially people of color who live and visit here, that officers can be trusted.
Aurora is closer to that. Under Acevedo, the department has been checking off some requirements in training and recruitment that will go a long way in ensuring trust, even if it doesn’t immediately build trust.
Acevedo had some success in fighting the usual battles of pressing for police reforms and then pressing back against police union officials who resisted them.
On Monday, Acevedo offered his trademark passion and warmth to fellow officers, union stalwarts or not.
He talked at length about the police department’s reputation and outside scrutiny, pushing back against allegations of a beleaguered police department unable to move forward.
“Change is not easy,” he said. “Do not spend time on the haters. You are not broken.”
It’s time for a new message in Aurora.
Change doesn’t have to be hard. Critics are not necessarily haters. Above all, it will take transparency, consistency and time to prove the Aurora Police Department is on the mend.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
I am definitely not an Acevedo fan, but even less of a fan of a clown like Dave Perry. There is nothing the police could ever do correctly in the eyes of someone like Perry. Nevermind that Perry knows zero about law enforcement or what real life street encounters can turn into. Perry is a leftist who sits smugly behind the safety of his keyboard making uniformed, one-sided assessments.
Waiting to hear what you say he’s gotten wrong.