Three Aurora police officers appeal their termination

Two Aurora police officers appealed their terminations for snapping selfies mocking the death of Elijah McClain at the site where he was put into a carotid chokehold.

A third officer, one of the men involved in McClain’s August arrest, also appealed his firing for texting “ha ha” in response to the pictures.

Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich and Jason Rosenblatt filed their appeals with the city’s Civil Service Commission on Wednesday, city spokesman Michael Bryant said.

All three officers were fired July 3.

The city will not provide the documents or the reasons for the appeals because they are considered personnel records and therefore are not subject to open-records laws at this time, Bryant said.

The commission will schedule hearings for the three officers.

The city charter requires that the hearings be held within 30 days of the appeal, but the parties often file for extensions that delay the hearings, Bryant said.

The third officer in the pictures, Jaron Jones, resigned before he could be fired and cannot appeal.

The photos showed the three officers pretending to use carotid chokes on each other — the same maneuver used against 23-yearold McClain before he became brain-dead.

The officers who took the pictures explained during the internal affairs investigation that they were trying to cheer up Rosenblatt and another officer, who they considered friends, with the photos when they took them in October.

Dittrich said he thought the photos would be funny.

Rosenblatt was one of the three officers who responded to the 911 call about a suspicious person that lead to McClain’s death. The other two officers remain on the force.