Independent Review's Recommendation For Overhaul Of Aurora Police Use Of Force Policies Presented To City Council
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – An independent review of the Aurora Police Department's policies, procedures and operations recommends an overhaul of how the department handles use of force and investigates alleged misconduct by officers.
The 158-page assessment was put together by 21CP Solutions, a global firm that on its website says it helps communities "tackle the challenges of delivering safe, effective, just and constitutional public safety services." The findings were presented to Aurora City Council Monday night.
Last August, the city of Aurora partnered with the firm to do a comprehensive review, after a series of controversial actions by officers came under intense community scrutiny, including an incident when a black woman and four children were handcuffed by officers, as well as the death of Elijah McClain. 21CP Solutions' assessment did not look into individual cases, but instead focused on "comparing APD's practices, policies, and procedures against best, promising, and emerging national practices."
"This report therefore focuses on those areas of greatest opportunity within APD and on actionable recommendations for short- and intermediate-term improvements," the report stated.
The assessment makes 47 recommendations for the department, and some of the most detailed and critical involved use of force by officers. The group said APD's policies should be "substantially revised" to include clear guidelines on when force should and should not be used.
According to the report, Aurora's use of force policies mirror Colorado statutes, and in doing so, "fail to address a host of critical concepts, lagging far behind peers and best practices."
"Even more critically, the deferral to Colorado state statutes suggests to officers that the City of Aurora and its police department expect them to meet nothing more than generic, minimum standards," the report stated.
In putting the report together, the 21CP Solutions team analyzed hundreds of use of force cases dating back to 2016. It found 27 officers, about 3% of the force, were responsible for nearly a quarter of all use of force reports in 2020.
Black men were disproportionately the recipients of police use of force, the report found.
"Specifically, Black men were the subject of 29% of force incidents even as they make up 9% of Aurora's population," the report said.
The report also recommends APD should specifically prohibit "various problematic types of force that are almost never objectively reasonable, necessary, or proportional," including:
Techniques and/or modes of transport that run a substantial risk of positional asphyxia.
Use of force to subdue a subject who is not suspected of any criminal conduct.
Use of force against individuals who are solely engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights.
Use of force against subject(s) who only verbally confront officers.
Use of retaliatory force.
Use of force against subject(s) who are handcuffed or otherwise restrained.
Use of force to overcome only passive resistance.
Use of head strikes with hard objects unless deadly force is authorized under the circumstances.
"I hope that now this has come from a third party that we can start making some moves on some of those," said Councilwoman Allison Hiltz.
Other strong and detailed recommendations in the report involved overhauling the entire system of handling complaints, investigations and disciplinary decisions. The 21CP team said APD officers, third party reviewers, and community members described the current system as "broken, cumbersome, and ineffective in promoting a culture of accountability with the department."
The report states a small number of officers accounted for a disproportionately large share of misconduct cases and allegations. 35 officers accounted for 40 percent of misconduct investigations between 2017 and 2020.
Consultants also recommend the department streamline the current process for handling external complaints. They found between 2017 and 2020, misconduct investigations took just over 200 days on average, and nearly one out of 10 cases, or 8% of them, took more than a year.
"Ultimately, the byzantine and convoluted nature of APD's current discipline system – involving various tracks, review boards, and adjudication levels – does not seem to be inspiring confidence, neither within the community nor the Department, in the fairness of process or outcomes of the misconduct process," the report stated.
In a statement, a spokesman for the City of Aurora said the city requested the review and welcomes guidance on best practices. Neither city staff nor Chief Vanessa Wilson were available for interviews before Monday's meeting.
"As we move forward in creating a new vision of public safety, we intend to keep our community at the center of these conversations," said Ryan Luby, deputy director of the Aurora's Communications and Marketing Department. "The 21CP recommendations will be incorporated into other recommendations made by the Community Policing Task Force and the Independent Review Panel that was led by Jonathan Smith and his team."
Throughout the report, the authors recommended many other changes, including updating training and hiring processes, creating policies about documenting non-voluntary interactions with the public, and revising the policies requiring officers intervene when another officer risks violating APD policy or law.
In the report, the team of authors emphasized it does not have all the answers for Aurora city leaders or community members.
"For that matter, it is unlikely that any one of Aurora's stakeholders alone have all of the answers," the report said. "Instead, the purpose of this report is to identify methods by which that the Aurora community, APD, elected officials, and other stakeholders might promote ever-more inclusive, equitable, effective, and just public safety in Aurora tomorrow."
In Monday's meeting, an author of the report called the city "courageous" for bringing in an outside review and said APD was already working on implementing some of the recommendations.
