Aurora’s next police chief stood at a podium in a darkened room before a line of TV news cameras Thursday and pledged to rebuild trust between community members and the police force.
“Give me a chance,” Todd Chamberlain said. “Let’s partner, let’s collaborate. Let’s work together. I’m here for the long haul.”
The 61-year-old Los Angeles Police Department veteran made the appeal after he was selected to be the city’s sixth police chief in five years through a hiring process that happened entirely behind closed doors and with no public input — a departure from past chief selections and an approach both he and City Manager Jason Batchelor defended during a news conference Thursday at the Aurora Municipal Center.
“I think the question has to be, well, has the selection process worked in the past?” Chamberlain said. “And I’m gonna be very candid with you, I don’t think it has. You’ve had five chiefs in five years… but I know I’m here to commit. I’m here to say that I am part of the city of Aurora.”
The closed-door approach was criticized by Aurora community members, including state Sens. Rhonda Fields and Janet Buckner, both Aurora Democrats, who said in a joint statement Thursday that the city’s private hiring process “signals an unwillingness to learn from past mistakes.”
“Excluding community members and leaders from this important decision once again has missed a crucial opportunity to heal past traumas and build towards stronger collaboration between the community and law enforcement,” the statement said.
Batchelor called the city’s last attempt to hire a permanent police chief “a failed public process” and said he opted to select the city’s next chief in private in order to “provide the highest probability to find the best-qualified candidates,” noting that a non-public process allowed candidates to apply without jeopardizing their standing with their current police departments.
Chamberlain repeatedly said Thursday he wanted to interact with the community but did not give any specifics on how he would do that or whether he would hold any public meetings before Aurora’s City Council votes to confirm his hiring Monday. If he is confirmed by the council, Chamberlain will be sworn in Sept. 9, ending more than two years of interim leadership at the police department.
In wide-ranging comments during Thursday’s news conference, Chamberlain focused on the breadth of his prior experience in law enforcement, his commitment to stay in Aurora for the long term and the need to rebuild trust both between officers and leadership within the police department and between officers and community members.
“Aurora is now my home,” he said.
Chamberlain spent 34 years at the Los Angeles Police Department before retiring as a commander in 2018. He briefly worked as the police chief for the Los Angeles Unified School District but resigned after less than a year on the job over budget cuts, and was previously a finalist for chief jobs in Cincinnati;Little Rock, Arkansas; andChattanooga, Tennessee.
While at the Los Angeles Police Department, he was named in a 2011 lawsuit — though not as a defendant — brought by a Black police officer who said he experienced racist pranks and harassment in his unit, including the presentation of a cake topped with fried chicken and watermelons to mark his 20th year of service at the police department.
The officer claimed Chamberlain knew about the harassment but failed to take action. A jury awarded the officer $1.2 million in 2013, court records show.
Chamberlain denied the officer’s characterization of events Thursday, saying he took over leadership of a unit that had a years-long pattern of inappropriate racist misconduct and within “two weeks” identified the problem and alerted a workplace evaluation team, then the department’s internal affairs investigators. Chamberlain also reassigned a sergeant who was responsible for much of the problem, he said.
“It was Black on Black officers, it was Hispanic on Black, it was Asian on Black, and then there were a couple of white officers that were involved in this as well,” he said. “Basically, it was a practice that this unit had been allowed to cultivate. I was there for two weeks. I saw this, I identified it.”
He said the experience of flagging and addressing that misconduct helped to prepare him to take similar action in Aurora, if needed.
“You have to have someone in charge who is willing to step forward and take those on,” he said. “And I’ll tell you, it’s not a pleasant experience. You’ve all probably been involved in workplace issues, or seen it, and know how it can basically eat away the core of not only that unit, but the whole organization. And I’m not going to accept that. If I find that here, I’m going to do the same thing.”
Aurora’s police department is undergoing court-ordered reform and oversight after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser found a pattern of racist bias and excessive force among the city’s police officers that repeatedly violated state and federal law.
Weiser on Thursday called for the creation of an independent monitor position to continue outside oversight of the police department after the court oversight expires in 2027.
“It is clear to me that Aurora must have an independent police monitor in place when the consent decree expires,” Weiser said. “A permanent structure for independent review of the police department would help ensure that reform, accountability, and transparency continue, and that the city is responsive to community concerns.”
Batchelor said the city will include funding to re-establish an independent monitor in the 2026 budget. Chamberlain also said that he supports continued independent oversight.
“I believe in it, I think it’s an important aspect,” Chamberlain said. “It’s something that we should not ever shy away from. I think if you have an organization or department that is running properly, running ethically, doing all the right steps, that should be applauded. That should be seen. That should be very transparent.”
Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.
Originally Published: August 22, 2024 at 3:23 p.m.
