Aurora, Colorado, has America’s arguably worst police department. Its cops are infamous. Their own chief calls them “despicable.” So it’s not really a surprise they’re in the news again.
Last Friday, July 23, 2021, two Aurora officers responding to a trespassing complaint saw three men “sitting near their bicycles.” They were initially cooperative, but when the cops checked their IDs and found all three had outstanding warrants, two fled and the one who fell into the cops’ clutches got the Aurora treatment.
He was choked, beaten bloody, and had a gun held to his head.
That cop has been charged with three felonies and two misdemeanors. He’s on unpaid leave. His female partner is charged with misdemeanor counts of failing to intervene and failing to report a use of force — essentially, letting it happen and covering it up. She’s on paid leave.
The Aurora PD is most notorious for the killing of Elijah McClain. But its continuing notoriety flows from the sheer volume and frequency of its cops’ bad behavior. For example, their crowd control amounts to indiscriminate kidnapping of random civilians. And there’s the cop who pulled a gun on a doctor for honking at him for blocking the doc’s parking garage exit with his squad car.
Aurora, a Denver suburb of ~325,000 people (roughly the combined populations of Tacoma and Bellevue, Washington), needs a police department. Defunding isn’t a solution; you can’t just leave its citizens to fend for themselves against anarchy, mayhem, and crime. But it doesn’t need this police department.
The city has a new police chief — the one who admits her cops are “despicable” — but change is slow in coming. It takes more than management changes to rein in incorrigible cops. You have to get rid of them. That’s easier said than done. Because they have civil service and union contract protections, you can’t do anything until they beat someone bloody or lifeless, or threaten to shoot a doctor for honking at them to get out of his driveway because he wants to leave his office and go home to his wife and kids.
Which they will do, sooner or later, because that’s how America’s worst police department typically behaves. Its rotten internal culture can be counted on to produce this kind of behavior. So, if the new chief and the district attorney are willing, change will happen. But the system grinds slowly, and transitioning these cops from blue uniforms to orange jumpsuits takes time, and has to be done one bad cop at a time.
In the meantime, Aurora’s residents continue to be brutalized by that city’s out-of-control cops. Maybe they should just stay indoors all the time.
Maybe people with warrants against them should turn themselves in at the jail or police department. If they are feeling generous bring a box of donuts. That is what bad people should do, often they will even be released on bail. Bring a donut or apple for the judge. Judges just love that kind of thing,
Of course they should turn themselves in. Even better, they shouldn’t break the law in the first place. But they absolutely should not offer the cops donuts, or the judge an apple. That would just add attempted bribery to their other charges.