New chief of Aurora police force wants cops to recognize their bias
The 23-year veteran of the department seeks to rebuild trust
DENVER — The new leader of the suburban Denver police department whose officers put Elijah McClain in a chokehold before the young Black man died last year and handcuffed Black girls over the weekend said Wednesday she is committed to rebuilding the public’s trust.
Vanessa Wilson says she wants to empower police to veer away from strict training protocols and think about whether they are acting on their biases.
Wilson was named the new chief of the Aurora Police Department this week after serving as its interim leader. She takes the job as the agency reels from encounters with Black people that have drawn widespread attention on social media and triggered a series of investigations.
Aurora’s first female chief, who is white, said the scene captured on video by a bystander of the girls lying face down on the ground Sunday next to a car that police thought was stolen was “inhumane and just unbelievable to watch.” Two of the girls were placed in handcuffs and a 6-year-old girl wearing a pink crown cried for her mother.
It wouldn’t have happened, she told the Associated Press, had officers used common sense to respond to what they observed.
“I know that people are angry and disgusted by what they saw. And so am I,” Wilson said. “I also want to tell you that a lot of our own officers are dismayed and angered about why in the world that call went that way.”
The car was later determined not to be stolen. Wilson
said an internal investigation has begun.
Officers are trained to draw guns and put people on the ground when stopping a suspected stolen car because it’s considered high risk, but when the mother, Brittney Gilliam, told police the car was not stolen and there were children inside, they should have put their guns away and talked to her from a safe distance, Wilson said.
The car had the same license plate number as a motorcycle reported stolen from another state, but officers failed to crosscheck an alert about Gilliam’s vehicle with the original stolen motorcycle report, Wilson said.
While interim chief, Wilson decided that because of implicit bias and racism, officers no longer had to contact a person reported to be suspicious, as McClain was as he walked home from a store last August, if they didn’t see evidence of a crime.
Police stopped McClain, 23, put him in a chokehold and paramedics gave him 500 milligrams of ketamine to calm him down. McClain suffered cardiac arrest and was later taken off life support.
The Colorado attorney general is now investigating after a local prosecutor said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge the officers. It’s one of a handful of investigations into McClain’s death, including a city review of police policies.
“I have changed the directive on suspiciousperson calls so that if someone is called in as suspicious just because of the color of their skin, officers don’t have to be robotic in their response,” Wilson said.
She noted that residents sometimes complain if they don’t see a police presence after those calls. She said that the community needs to support the shift in policing and that she would defend her officers for using their best judgment.
Wilson said everyone, including police, should be aware of their implicit biases and check themselves.
“I think the call to action across the nation has been heard loud and clear, not only for me … but other chiefs across the nation,” she said. “And we need to do better, and we need to listen to the community and give them a voice, and police them the way they want to be policed.”
Activists and leaders in Colorado say they hope Wilson, a 23-year veteran of the department, can create meaningful change. Gov. Jared Polis told reporters Tuesday that he hopes Wilson is ready to work to increase transparency and rebuild trust.