AURORA, Colo. — The Aurora Police Department released its 2023 Use of Force Report this week, in what officials say will now be an annual disclosure. The move comes as part of a consent decree mandated by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office following an investigation into patterns of racist and biased policing within the department.
The report indicates a rise in the department’s overall use of force incidents, increasing from 627 in 2022 to 757 in 2023. The data is categorized into three levels: low-level force (minor or no injury), intermediate force (such as the use of weapons), and lethal force (such as officer-involved shootings or incidents requiring hospitalization).
Low-level use of force incidents rose from 520 to 632 cases. Intermediate use of force increased from 94 to 121 cases. In contrast, lethal force incidents saw a decline, dropping from 13 in 2022 to four in 2023.
Deputy Chief Chris Juul attributed the rise in overall use-of-force numbers to the nature of calls officers faced in 2023.
“The increase is primarily attributed to just the types of calls that we're responding to in 2023 in comparison to 2022. The calls tend to be more in-progress type calls and tend to have more offenders on scene,” Juul said.
Juul also noted that the department’s staffing improvements after COVID-19 allowed for a greater capacity to respond to calls. He emphasized 83.4% of use-of-force incidents fell into the low-level category.
The consent decree, which requires APD to publish annual reports and undergo extensive training, has also led to policy reforms. In 2023, the department introduced new de-escalation training and expanded options for less-lethal tools.
“We're encouraging our officers to do much more assessment and more recognition of what other alternatives there might be,” Juul said. “We’ve also instituted some additional options for our officers to use that are less lethal, with regard to intermediate weapons.”
Juul said the decline in lethal force incidents demonstrates the effectiveness of these measures.
“As we look at this, we identify any training needs or deficiencies, which in this case, actually it’s reinforcing the fact that our low-level techniques are working really well,” he said.
While Juul said the department's reduction in deadly encounters is a good sign, the report underscores ongoing racial disparities in APD’s use of force. Black residents, who make up 16.6% of Aurora’s population, accounted for 41% of the reported use-of-force cases in 2023.
"Regardless of physical characteristics of a person or perceived character characteristics of a person, is irrelevant in the officer's decision making," Juul said. "These numbers are consistent about what the numbers and demographics of people who are arrested, not just within Aurora, but also nationally."
Members of the Black community remain deeply skeptical of APD’s reforms following high-profile cases like the deaths of Elijah McClain and Kilyn Lewis.
Juul acknowledged that the report serves not only as a compliance measure but also as a tool for improvement.
“We can actually use that information to help improve our own operations,” he said.