Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain told city councilmembers Monday night that the department is “woefully understaffed,” adding that the city’s number of officers per 1,000 people is below the national and state levels.

Police departments should be staffed at two officers per 1,000 community members, according to FBI standards. Aurora has about 1.7 officers per 1,000 community members, according to Chamberlain. 

Meanwhile, the national level is 2.4 officers per 1,000 and the state level is 2.2 officers per 1,000. Aurora has 748 officers for a city of 404,000 people, according to the most recent census data. 

However, the actual population is probably closer to 450,000, Chamberlain said, with an additional estimated 30,000 undocumented people and 20,000 on Buckley Space Force Base. 

“This is not a request for bodies, I understand the budget and the mechanics of that,” Chamberlain told councilmembers. “But I think this is something that needs to be discussed and I wanted to be sure you were aware of.”

Still, Chamberlain said, arrests are up and crime is down as compared to last year.

In January of this year, police made 600 arrests. In February, they made 596 arrests, according to data presented by Chamberlain. Much of the increase in arrests was based on intervention on shoplifting, he said. 

This year to date, there have been 2,742 reported crimes in Aurora, according to police data. By the same time last year, there had been 3,523. While overall crime rates are down, auto theft and robbery are up, Chamberlain said. 

Chamberlain attributed the decline in crime to the “hard work” of the department, he said.

“Don’t get lost in the numbers, get lost in the people,” Chamberlain told councilmembers. “Because each of these numbers represent a name.”

Since Chamberlain joined APD, the department has modified seven of its policies, including those for emergency response of vehicle operations, police vehicle pursuits, reporting use of force, use of force investigations, use of force adjudication, arrest procedures and complaint and discipline procedures for sworn members. 

Chamberlain said before he came on, the department had a “humongous backlog” of personnel complaints and uses of force, including some investigations for use of force that were two to three years old. 

Officers were not being addressed in a timely manner when they did wrong and officers under investigation who were in the right were not being put back into the field, he said. Their process has changed, he said, so this is no longer the case.

Back in February, the department also changed its pursuit policy, adding vehicle theft to the list of circumstances that allow officers to initiate a police pursuit.

Since the new policy went into effect March 5, there have been 17 pursuits. Chamberlain said 75% of the people stopped had “extensive, prolific” criminal histories. 

Vehicle operations have also changed, Chamberlain added, saying the department will use lights and sirens in more situations. Previously, some robbery, assault and other similar calls did not get a lights and sirens response due to an outdated policy.

“It’s getting our officers where they need to be much quicker,” Chamberlain said about the policy change. “I also hope it has an effect where officers are being seen more driving around the community with lights and sirens on and affect the incredibly poor driving patterns we have here.”