The Aurora Police Department said it has provided de-escalation training from nationally established programs to its officers, part of complying with its ongoing consent agreement with the state.
The department is also developing new anti-bias training.
All sworn officers have gotten instruction in constitutional policing, Integrating Communications, Assessment, and Tactics (ICAT) and Active Bystandership for Law Enforcement (ABLE) as of March 1, the department said.
The ICAT program, developed by the Police Executive Research Forum, trains police officers in responding to situations in which people are behaving erratically -- and perhaps dangerously -- but do not have a gun. ABLE training provides instruction to law enforcement agencies on peer intervention to prevent harmful actions to civilians, and it also promotes officers’ well-being.
Aurora agreed to make changes to its police and fire agencies when an investigation by the Attorney General’s Office about two years after the death of Elijah McClain found patterns of bias and excessive force in policing. Aurora Fire Rescue also had a pattern of using the sedative ketamine in violation of the law, the investigation found. The fire department stopped using ketamine more than two years ago but will need to comply with related mandates in the consent agreement if it ever resumes the drug's use.
The city entered the consent decree with the state in February 2022. The agreement contains 70 mandates altogether. The monitoring period, overseen by the Florida-based company IntegrAssure, has been set to last at least five years, depending on Aurora’s compliance.
The police department said it has created new policies for constitutional policing and anti-bias policing. The training emphasizes the public’s protections against unreasonable contacts based on the Fourth and 14th Amendments.
The constitutional policing training focuses on making sure stops are ethical, as well as legal. It also covers expectations for documenting interactions with members of the public, a statewide reporting requirement that went into effect at the beginning of this year.
The police department is still developing the anti-bias training, meant to educate sworn officers and civilian staff on identifying how cultural diversity, stereotypes and bias influence community relations and relationships between employees, according to the department. It intends to roll out the training this year.
“The Constitutional Policing and Bias Based Policing policies lay the foundation and are monumental first steps for achieving compliance with the consent decree,” the department said in a statement. “The core principles of both policies clearly state the agency’s commitments to define its values, rebuild trust with the community and improve the department’s culture.”
Aurora’s officers will receive updated ABLE training this year to follow up on the instruction they went through in 2021 and 2022.
The police and fire departments started developing joint training in 2021, according to the release.
“Focused primarily on improving policies and providing more training opportunities for officers, the consent decree represents our commitment to the community to regain its trust,” the department said.
