Denver Gazette’s news partner 9News asked the chief late Sunday night if a clinician with the co-responder program was dispatched to the scene since the man was coming from a facility dealing with mental health issues.

“My understanding is that there was no one with those skills working at the time of the event,” Oates said.

We now know why: There was no one working.

Aurora Police currently doesn’t have a single clinician working in the co-responder program that sends an officer and a mental health professional to crime scenes together.

“At this exact moment, we have zero actual co-responding clinicians at the moment,” Courtney Tassin, Crisis Intervention Programs Manager for the City of Aurora, said.

Fully staffed, the co-responder program would have five clinicians working in teams with specially trained police officers. Last year they responded to more than 1,000 calls.

The team hasn’t been fully staffed since 2017 and hasn’t had a single clinician for a month now.

For more on this story, visit the Denver Gazette’s news partner’s website 9News.com.