Aurora Police outline data-driven crime strategy, warn department remains understaffed

Chief Todd Chamberlain, chief of the Aurora Police Department, told the Aurora City Council on April 7 that the department has overhauled policies and operations to support an evidence-based crime strategy while continuing to face staffing shortages.

Chamberlain said the department has revised policies on pursuits, emergency vehicle operations, use-of-force reporting and complaint adjudication to reduce backlog and improve deployment. "Everything that we do in Aurora PD is evidence based," he said, adding that the changes were necessary to get officers back into patrol duty and to protect the department from litigation when officers follow written policy.

Chamberlain gave the council a three-part framework for fighting crime: near-term hot-spot policing that targets small geographic areas; mid-term, place-based collaborations that involve city departments and the city attorney; and long-term intervention and prevention work, such as the AuroraSave program. He described AuroraSave as a case-management-style intervention that focuses on people with the highest propensity for violence and said the program had recently engaged three people linked to about 25 shootings.

The chief outlined organizational changes: consolidating special units into patrol where needed, reshaping the captain rank so captains have direct operational assignments, standing up a real-time information center and civilianizing business-service roles to free sworn personnel for patrol. He also emphasized a renewed emphasis on analytics, saying analysts now build dashboards and guide deployment without relying on costly external vendors.

Chamberlain presented department metrics and staffing figures and urged the council to consider them in budget planning. He said Aurora currently staffs about 1.7 officers per 1,000 residents, below the Bureau of Justice/FBI benchmark he cited of roughly 2.0 officers per 1,000 and below the Colorado average he gave of about 2.2. "We're authorized for 748. We're actually deploying 707," he said, adding that patrol billets authorized at 219 were being staffed at about 202. He said the city population baseline used in his presentation was roughly 404,000 and that the department’s authorized ceiling would scale higher with population.

Chamberlain described a change in pursuit policy that has led to 17 pursuits since the revision; he said roughly 75% of those apprehended had prolific criminal histories and weapon violations. He also reported increases in citations, contacts and arrests year to date compared with last fall, and said year-to-date reported crimes were down overall by 22.2% compared with the same period last year, with motor vehicle theft and residential robbery as exceptions.

Councilmembers questioned several points. "The International Association of Chiefs of Police specifically says there's not a staffing standard," said Councilmember Gardner, asking where the two-per-thousand figure originated; Chamberlain replied he relied on Bureau of Justice and FBI data and said standards should be adapted to local conditions. Councilmember Murillo raised civil-liberties concerns about expanding drone and other surveillance tools, asking, "How are you going to draw a balance of targeting specific individuals... as opposed to just everyday... community members?" Chamberlain said community engagement and tight operational rules would guide any surveillance deployment and stressed that analysis would target individuals, times and locations rather than broad neighborhood sweeps.

Chamberlain asked for community involvement as the department develops drone, real-time crime center and analytics capabilities, and said some technology deployments (for example, drones staged to respond along Colfax) are intended to give officers faster situational awareness, sometimes removing the need to send a unit immediately to a scene.

The presentation included discussion of juvenile violence and limited regional capacity for juvenile beds; Chamberlain said that constrained placement options affect how the system responds to young people involved in violence and that outreach through SROs and intervention programs remains a priority.

The council did not take a formal vote on staffing levels or the department’s technology proposals at the study session. Chamberlain answered council questions and said staff would continue refining metrics and community engagement plans.

Chamberlain concluded by urging continued support for analytics and staffing investments to sustain the changes and measurement practices the department has adopted.