Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson has fired Officer Robert Rosen for excessive use of force in an August 2020 incident, the police department announced Thursday afternoon.

A blog post by the department said Rosen struck a man passively resisting arrest several times in the ribs and used his Taser five times.  

“During the arrest Officer Rosen never attempted any lesser means of force nor did he make any attempts to deescalate the situation in accordance with Aurora Police training,” states the post.

He was hired by the Aurora Police Department in 2017. 

According to the internal affairs investigation’s summary of evidence, Rosen went to assist another officer who was dealing with a man who was trespassing. The man was passively resisting by lying on his stomach with his arms underneath him. Rosen briefly tried to get the man’s arm out from beneath him without first giving a verbal order, says the summary, before punching him four times and using his Taser. 

The use of force and internal affairs investigation revealed Rosen did not activate his body-worn camera when he first arrived at the scene, nor did he document his justifications for each use of force during the arrest, according to the summary of evidence.

Body-worn camera footage from the first officer on the scene shows him trying to remove one of the man’s arms from under him while giving him verbal orders to give him his arm. When Rosen arrives, the other officer asks him for help getting his arm out.

“Members of the Aurora Police Department have been working tirelessly to rebuild trust in our community and I want to thank those officers who do it right everyday. The actions of Mr. Rosen were in direct contradiction of those efforts,” Wilson said in a statement. “The poor decisions he made that day do not meet the high standards that the community and I expect from my officers.”

The 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office declined to prosecute Rosen criminally. 

Rosen has 10 days to appeal his firing with the Aurora Civil Service Commission, according to the termination letter from Wilson.