Not only does Aurora have yet another shooting tragedy to bear, the city has another Aurora Police disaster on their hands in their mishandling of it.

What’s clear in the tragedy is that an Aurora boy, 14-year-old Jor’Dell Richardson, was shot dead by an Aurora police officer June 1.

Little else about the shooting, relayed by police, is clear or even credible at this point.

The Aurora Police Department debacle is yet another episode of police spin, misinformation and inconsistencies about what really happened.

It’s a calamity all too familiar for residents of Aurora. Someone is maimed, injured or killed by an Aurora police officer. The details of the incident are either withheld, sketchy or outright contrived to create a narrative in defense of police.

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Ultimately, the truth drips out, making police officials look disingenuous at best and, at worst, as in the past, repugnant liars.

Meanwhile the vast majority of talented, righteous and passionate cops on the force are slandered in the tumult.

It’s unclear where Aurora’s current interim Chief Art Acevedo will land in hindsight, but his meandering commentary about this shooting so far has been catastrophic all by itself.

Acevedo came to Aurora late last year at the behest of the last interim Aurora police chief, Dan Oates, at least that’s according to one story told by police and city officials.

Oates, a former Aurora police chief, replaced former Chief Vanessa Wilson a little more than a year ago. She was unceremoniously sacked after becoming a firebrand for no-nonsense police reform in Aurora.

City officials have yet to provide a compelling explanation for Wilson’s firing.

Oates’ brief tenure was ruinous toward improving the police department’s shredded credibility.

Amid a history of virtually endless scandals and horrific episodes of police brutality, malfeasance and abuse of power, Oates last year shielded an Aurora police commander from her part in a Denver-based crime, actually promoting her to the highest ranks in the department. Outed by a Sentinel investigation and other media accounts, the police commander ultimately quit the department rather than face demotion.

Acevedo was partially credited for making right Oates’ astounding wrong.

But on June 1, just a few hours after Richardson had been shot dead by Aurora Police Officer Roch Gruszeczka, Acevedo hastily went on camera and delivered a wandering narrative clearly intended to give political cover to police for the lethal shooting of a teenager.

Acevedo haphazardly told the public that a local beat cop saw a group of teenagers wearing COVID masks and hoodies, appearing suspect.

He said the group committed an armed robbery at a convenience store, and as one of the robbers bolted as other officers rolled up, a chase ensued.

Acevedo told the public he had watched the police body camera video and had a clear picture of what happened. He said one of the cops tackled Richardson as he ran, that he had “what appeared to be” a semi-automatic handgun in his waistband, and that the cop shot the boy as he was reaching, possibly, for the weapon.

He made it clear the dead boy and others had committed an “armed robbery” of the store, stealing vape canisters, but that wasn’t known to the officers as they chased the boy. Acevedo didn’t make that clear.

Acevedo said Gruszeczka has been on the force since 2017, and that he had been assigned to the city’s gang unit in 2019.

What he withheld was that the officer was the subject of a lawsuit, accused of illegally arresting and searching a Black man during a 2018 apartment-parking lot encounter. That $100,000 lawsuit was just settled in February, the Sentinel reported.

Although Acevedo said he watched June 1 body cam video after the shooting, he withheld from the public at the time that the boy clearly appeared to have a police handcuff on one wrist at the time of the shooting.

He withheld during that first stand-up that the boy clearly told the officer that tackled him, “Stop, please, you got me.”

Acevedo said the boy was shot during a struggle, and that the boy’s gun was tossed away just after he was shot by Gruszeczka.

What he withheld – for a week – was that the boy’s pistol looked like a semi-automatic gun, but it was actually a BB gun.

Outside investigators have told the Sentinel that the gun was confiscated and placed in evidence inside the Aurora Police Department the day of the shooting.

Anyone who’s handled a real gun would be able to tell immediately that the BB gun was not a “semi-automatic” firearm, which Acevedo called it on subsequent conversations he had in public.

On Monday, Acevedo blamed Aurora police staffers for not telling him the boy had a BB gun. Staffers said Acevedo was told on Thursday, but he didn’t disclose the fact to the family until minutes before the press conferences last Friday, and that’s when he told the public.

Whether the gun was real or fake, in the chaos of the struggle it appears to have prompted the police shooting. That isn’t at issue right now in regards to the police decision to shoot the boy based on what looked to be a real gun.

Not disclosing the BB gun, however, directly undermines the police’s ability to be perceived and truthful and “transparent.”

On June 1, Acevedo talked prolifically about police transparency and how horrific the tragedy was, and that kids like Richardson act as if armed robbery is as inconsequential as a video game.

The boy had just been shot dead, yet Acevedo lamented during a rambling homily that a hard-working family running the store had been victimized, and that the officer is also a victim in the tragedy, having to live with the shooting death.

He wove a narrative, defending the shooting in what sounded like opening remarks of a trial, not an explanation of the facts by police.

Acevedo then, and days later during an even more contrived and expanded press performance, insisted this is the ultimate in police transparency.

The only thing transparent about Acevedo’s sermons is that he was intent on defending the shooting at all costs.

The “cost” was the destruction of his own credibility and that of the department and city.

The tragedy here now is that a real investigation into the shooting may well find the police homicide was either accidental or maybe in some way justified, given the chaotic nature of the events that led to it.

Acevedo’s actions so far, however, sully whatever result of an outside investigation will reveal.

The interim chief is clearly oblivious to the mile-long Aurora Police Department rap sheet of murder and mayhem. He does not fully appreciate that people of color rightfully fear encounters with Aurora police based on the history of some officers in the department, and that culture inside the department that hid it.

The State of Colorado has essentially put APD on parole through a complicated and apparently ineffective consent decree.

The demand of the Colorado Attorney General, and the public, is for Aurora police to provide real transparency and real accountability.

These spectacles are neither.

By purposely, or carelessly, withholding, twisting or outright inventing a narrative clearly intended to allow police to dodge blame and innuendo, Acevedo has done vast damage to the department and his own tenure.

The public needs and deserves an accurate, unbiased account of these kinds of incidents, and they’re aren’t getting it.

Whether he is able to undo this damage to his credibility depends on his next moves, which should be a profound apology to the family and the public for trying to sell unbridled spin as transparency to a savvy and enlightened public that knows the difference.

Sentinel Colorado Editorial Board

Read the original article here.