Aurora leaders plan to hire a former Los Angeles Police Department commander as the next chief of the Aurora Police Department, the sixth person in 5 years to take on leading the troubled agency.
Todd Chamberlain will be sworn in as chief of the Aurora Police Department on Sept. 9 if the City Council approves his hiring on Monday.
In a statement, Chamberlain said he was deeply honored to be selected as the department’s next chief and committed to serving the city, police personnel and community.
“I look forward to embracing the challenges and successes ahead, with a focus on fostering strong relationships, building trust and ensuring collaboration at every level,” Chamberlain said in the statement. “Together, we can make a lasting impact on the safety and well-being of our city.”
Chamberlain worked at the LAPD from 1984 to 2018, when he retired as a commander, Aurora city officials said in a news release.
He went on to serve as police chief for the Los Angeles Unified School District and was most recently a public safety consultant and a lecturer at California State University Los Angeles.
Chamberlain resigned from his job as police chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District in 2020 when the department’s budget was cut 35% — a reduction of $25 million, according to the Los Angeles Times. He’d been in the chief position there for less than a year. The budget cut required that 65 officers be laid off in the 471-employee department, the Times reported.
He was previously a finalist for chief jobs in Cincinnati; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Chamberlain has not worked in law enforcement since 2020, but the gap doesn’t worry Marc Sears, president of the Aurora Fraternal Order of Police union.
“As a commander in LAPD, the guy had roughly 1,800 men below him that he was commanding,” he said. “That is larger than any police department in the state of Colorado, and that was just the district he had. So I am very confident he has the capability to effectively lead this organization.”
Sears said he met with Chamberlain a few weeks ago and spent some time talking to people who had worked with him in the past.
“I heard he was very matter-of-fact, very stoic, chill, laid-back kind of a guy, but also very authoritative and not afraid to make a decision,” he said.
He joked with Chamberlain about how long his tenure as Aurora police chief might be, Sears said. The police department has seen five chiefs in five years as a cascade of temporary leaders took the helm only to quickly bow out.
Most recently, interim Chief Heather Morris declined to apply for the permanent position in July. Morris, a deputy chief, took the role in January after former interim Chief Art Acevedo resigned after 13 months on the job. Acevedo hired her in April 2023 after they previously worked together in Houston and Miami.
“I said, ‘Can you please not be here for just six months then leave?’” Sears said. “And he said, ‘I can promise you it won’t be just six months.’ ”
Instability in the police department’s top job is one of a series of challenges Aurora city leaders have faced in recent years.
The Aurora Police Department has faced continued fallout from the death of Elijah McClain after his wrongful arrest as well as a court-ordered reform effort after the Colorado Attorney General’s Office found the agency routinely conducted racially biased policing and used excessive force.
That context is what raises concerns for community organizer Candice Bailey, who said she’s concerned about an apparent lack of community involvement in selecting Chamberlain.
“This is something our community has talked about for five years as we’ve shuffled back and forth between interim chiefs and a lack of applicants,” Bailey said.
Bailey said she’s disappointed in City Manager Jason Batchelor for not upholding his commitment to community input and engagement and continuous transparency.
“I’m calling on the city manager to show us how the community was engaged in this decision, or was this decision once again made with no community engagement?” she said.
A city spokesperson referred questions about the hiring process to a news conference with Batchelor, Chamberlain and other city leaders scheduled for Thursday.
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Originally Published: August 21, 2024 at 4:39 p.m.
