Susan Greene | Sentinel Reporter in Residence
Aurora’s City Council is once again leaving the council chambers during its regular meeting to sidestep protesters, this time, for the entire agenda.
A proposal slated for the Monday meeting would in the future curtail remote public comment to the city council, prompted by vulgar and racist phone-in public commentary last week.
Citing “repeated disruptions” of city council meetings in recent months, the 11-person council will meet virtually Sept. 23 rather than in person.
The move will enable the conservative majority council to avoid contact with civil rights activists who throughout the summer have intensely criticized some of its members and city government in general, routinely disrupting the meetings.
Those activists see the decision as a “cowardly attempt to dodge accountability,” and as an effort “to silence the voices of Black leaders and the grieving family of Kilyn E. Lewis, a Black man who was killed by the Aurora Police Department 119 days ago,” the group said in a statement Thursday.
The remote, streamed meeting will not, however, for this week allow the council to avoid remote critics like the white supremacist caller whose remarks — and public outcry against them that triggered council members to walk out of their in-person meeting on Sept. 9.
“Let’s be clear: this decision does not address the hateful, racist commentary heard on the public call-in line during the last meeting. Instead, it silences those of us demanding justice and accountability,” reads a joint statement by MiDian Shofner, CEO of Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, and Auon’tai M. Anderson, CEO of the Center for Advancing Black Excellence in Education.
“How can anyone justify responding to a racist attack via the public call-in line by moving all public comments to that same public call-in format?”
A resolution proposed for Monday would change city council meeting rules and require all comments to lawmakers be made in person from the lectern on the council floor. Vulgar, racist and anti-Semitic public comment made through remote meeting technology has become a regular occurrence nationwide, dubbed “zoom bombing.” The commenter either overrides control of virtual meeting software, making it impossible to “mute” them, or they take advantage of call-in systems unable to disconnect the caller. Denver, Lakewood and Wheat Ridge city council meetings have had similar episodes to the on in Aurora City Council Sept. 9.
The public comments portion of Aurora City Council meetings began making headlines on June 24 when a group of protesters signed up to renounce the May 23 shooting of Lewis, who was unarmed when shot by Aurora SWAT Officer Michael Dieck during Lewis’ arrest. Lewis, 37, died two days later from his wounds. Several of his family members have been among the speakers deriding the city for its long string of police killings and urging council members to force law enforcement to speed up their investigation, fire Dieck — who is on paid leave during the probe — and criminally charge him for Lewis’ death.
City officials have explained, repeatedly, that’s not how police shootings are handled in Aurora, and that due process, as slow as it may be, must take its course.
At meetings throughout July, some of the protesters exceeded their allotted three minutes of speaking time, and Mayor Mike Coffman reacted to their catcalls and insults by cutting public comments short and moving the proceedings to a secluded room where the council conducted its business via live-streaming rather than in person.
It wasn’t until mid-August that the council agreed to sit in person through comments by all 23 members of the public who signed up to speak. Most voiced their continued frustration for the city’s continued failure to share information about or video footage of Lewis’s shooting.
“You guys should be very nervous, I’m coming for ya’ll,” Lewis’ wife, Anndrec Lewis, told the council on Aug. 12.
“Do your job…” LaRonda Jones, Lewis’ mother, later added.
The next meeting, on Aug. 26, the group broadened its criticisms of the city, slamming not only its handling of the Lewis case, but also its hiring of Todd Chamberlain, Aurora’s seventh police chief in five years, without public participation in the hiring. Despite the group’s taunts, the council also managed to sit, in person, through that whole meeting.
Things got hairier at the next meeting on Sept. 9, when the protesters’ barbs to certain council members became more personal. In addition to the Lewis case and Chamberlain’s hiring, the group took fierce umbrage with a controversy stoked by Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky and, to a lesser degree, Coffman over Venezuelan migrants in Aurora. Both right-wing conservatives were accused of fomenting fear and anger over what they described, often without basis, as lawlessness among Venezuelan migrants locally and rampant violence by members of a Venezuelan prison gang, Tren de Aragua, otherwise known as TdA. Their comments to right-wing media put Aurora — along with Springfield, Ohio, which has a sizable population of Haitian immigrants — at the center of an election-season frenzy over U.S. immigrant policy.
Activist Leondard Lorton blamed Coffman for starting a “race war” with “unsubstantiated allegations.”
Denver activist Auon’tai Anderson admonished Jurinsky for spreading misinformation about Venezuelan migrants in what he called an attempt to seek an appointment in a Trump administration.
“How do you sleep at night?” he asked her. “Did you really think your lie was going to stick?”
To Coffman and Jurinsky, Lewis’ brother, Kiowa Lewis, asked God to forgive “y’all who are exhibiting evil” and denounced their “hate and racist agenda.”
The public comment portion of the council meeting ended abruptly at 8:30 p.m. after comments by a call-in speaker who described himself as a white supremacist. He used racist language to describe Venezuelans and protesters. He also used homophobic and anti-Semitic slurs when referring to Gov. Jared Polis — who has been critical of Jurinsky’s and Coffman’s handling of the Venezuelan controversy.
Councilmember Crystal Murillo, a Latina woman, said later in the meeting she was unnerved by the unapologetic racist and threatening remarks. She said the recent rash of exaggerated allegations against immigrants by her colleagues on the council emboldened such public comment.
The protesters in the audience started chanting for council members to “apologize now” for allowing the caller on the line, and for the Venezuelan controversy in general. All council members present at Monday’s meeting walked out of the chamber but for Murillo and Ruben Medina, both of whom have openly defended Venezuela immigrants in the community.
City spokesman Ryan Luby told the Sentinel Thursday that the council members “have the authority to determine where and how they hold their meetings,” and that council members “will be considering possible rule changes because of the continued disruptions and call-in line concerns.”
It is unclear whether the council will continue meeting remotely after next week.
Jones, Lewis’ mother, said in a statement Thursday that, “The city council has chosen to strip away the opportunity for me, and for others who have been affected by this tragedy, to stand before them and speak our truth.”
Activists supporting the family say they plan to rally outside the Aurora Municipal Center at 6 p.m. before Monday’s council meeting.
“We invite everyone — every person who believes in justice, every person who is tired of the lies, the cover-ups, and the systemic racism that continues to plague our city—to stand with us,” they wrote.
While a final agenda has yet to be posted, the public can watch and interact with meeting this way:
ª The meeting will be live streamed at www.auroraTV.org and Youtube.com/TheAuroraChannel
• The meeting will be broadcast on Cable Channels 8 and 880 in Aurora.
• The public can register to speak during Public Invited to Be Heard for non-agenda items, and for public hearings by calling 885-695-3475
