Aurora – Leaders from the black community met with police and the district attorney’s office Tuesday to express outrage over a recent grand jury ruling and to outline changes they pledge to seek in the system.
On Thursday, a grand jury declined to indict a white man who shot a black couple in November.
“Right now, the black community is devastated,” said the Rev. Acen Phillips, who represents American Churches United and has joined with other leaders to form a coalition to work with police to foster better relations.
The Rev. Larry Brown of Lowry Community Christian Church is organizing the coalition, which will consist of local pastors and members of various Aurora civic groups and commissions.
The group will push for more thorough background checks and mandatory training for gun owners. Brown also would like to see a change of state statute to allow the racial composition and gender of grand juries to be revealed.
The makeup of the grand jury that opted not to indict Denver restaurant owner Glenn Eich stedt is unknown.
Eichstedt, 52, shot and killed postal worker Aaron Davis, 39, and injured his wife, Benita Coleman-Davis, in a Nov. 13 parking-lot confrontation over a dented car door.
Brown said that after reading the grand jury’s report, he probably would have sided with the grand jury’s decision not to indict, which cited the fact that Davis hit Eichstedt with a metal bar before Eichstedt shot him. Regardless, Brown said he understands the hurt feelings.
“Instead of an us-versus-them mentality, we should all sit down and come together,” he said. “We’re all in the same boat. It’s time for us to fix the holes in the boat and set sail.”
But distrust still pervades the black community over the matter, said Phillips. Part of the problem, he said, is not knowing the racial makeup of the jurors.
“It’s like the days of the Ku Klux Klan,” he said. “That kind of secrecy creates a problem. … If you keep it in secret, you have people suspecting that (it) is an all-white jury.”
Assistant District Attorney Leslie Hansen said the grand-jury process can provide a feeling of confidence that the community’s feelings are being addressed because the jurors are members of the public. But part of the grand jury’s usefulness lies in its members’ anonymity, which is protected by Colorado law.
Hansen answered questions at the gathering, where attendees included the ministers; Wendy Sweeney of the Aurora chapter of the NAACP; and members of the Aurora Human Relations Commission, Youth Commission and the Key Community Response Team.
Phillips said people in the black community believe that if the races of those involved had been reversed – if a black man had shot a white couple – the shooter would have been arrested and charged with murder.
“That’s based on history,” Phillips said.
Not so, said interim Aurora Police Chief Terry Jones. Race wasn’t a factor in not arresting Eichstedt, who claimed he was acting in self-defense to stop Davis from beating him. Eichstedt held a concealed-weapons permit.
“In this case we conferred with the (on-site) district attorney and determined no probable cause,” Jones said. “Was it race-based? Absolutely not.”
Nevertheless, Phillips urged younger African-Americans not to feel they must arm themselves for protection from whites as a result of this case.
“We can’t have young black men going out, saying, ‘I’m going to get me a gun,”‘ he said. “I want to send a strong sign, don’t go out and get a gun. That’s not a solution. That’s not a way out.”
Staff writer Jeremy Meyer can be reached at 303-820-1175 or jpmeyer@denverpost.com.
