AURORA, Colo. — Aurora's city council on Monday approved a new consent decree – a legal settlement aimed at fixing how Aurora police officers use force and interact with people of color.
The decree creates three goals: to reduce racial disparities with how police arrest and use force; to be more transparent about arrests and using force; and to improve training for officers.
The agreement creates an oversight plan. The Aurora Police Department (APD) will get two years to change its policies, followed by three years of monitoring.
The oversight comes after the death of Elijah McClain, a young Black man who was stopped by police in 2019 despite doing nothing wrong. He died several days after police threw him to the ground and put him in a carotid hold, and paramedics injected him with ketamine.
After McClain's death, an investigation found police engaged in racially-biased policing. The City of Aurora and the Colorado Attorney General reached the consent decree agreement as part of a recommendation from that September report.
The agreement outlines specific commitments that Aurora, including the APD, Aurora Fire Rescue and the Aurora Civil Service Commission, will take to address issues found in the report.
Now that the city council has approved the consent decree, it will be submitted to the court system for a judge to sign off.
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