Here’s how police accountability works in Aurora:
Kick butt on the cop who stunned an alleged salad-bar scammer with an electric Taser. Ignore the cop who killed an unarmed man by shooting him in the back three times.
The Aurora City Council did its Police Department no favor last week when it voted informally not to let a new police Incident Review Board examine the death of Jamaal Bonner.
Bonner, 20, died in December 2003 after allegedly selling crack cocaine to an undercover police officer. The cops hit him with a Taser and shot him in the back three times. He was unarmed. He also was black. Officers’ accounts of what happened seem to contradict each other.
If the purpose of the new review board is to rein in cowboy cops and restore public confidence, Bonner’s killing screamed for review. Instead, a majority of Aurora council members decided the Bonner case was too old for a new board to revisit. They chose only one prior case for study – the cops’ decision to use a Taser on a black guy accused of eating too much at the salad bar at a Chuck E. Cheese pizza joint in February.
Granted, the use of a stun gun against a guy allegedly jonesing for lettuce and croutons ranks up there in the annals of excessive force. But the city has apologized for that miscarriage in exchange for the victim dropping a civil suit.
At this point, giving the salad saga priority over a cop killing an unarmed civilian makes as much sense as a doctor re-examining a scar while the patient bleeds to death from a severed limb.
Bonner’s parents say a police administrator led them to believe the Incident Review Board would look into their son’s killing. Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer said it should happen. The majority of council members disagreed.
In answering charges of police brutality and racism, that’s a mistake. A grand jury investigated the Bonner killing and did not indict any police officers. But the city still faces a suit by Bonner’s parents.
Letting details of Bonner’s death play out publicly in front of a judge doesn’t get the council off the hook for not sending the case to the review board, as some city officials contend. If the city had its way, it wouldn’t even be in court.
Council members who voted not to let the incident board review the Bonner case talked about looking forward rather than backward.
“The purpose of the review board is to look at an incident as it happens and make recommendations so it doesn’t happen again,” said Councilwoman Molly Markert.
There’s apparently a statute of limitations on lessons learned from police shootings of citizens. Several council members have said the Bonner case is too old to consider.
“It’s a timeliness issue,” said Markert.
If the Aurora council hadn’t taken a year to set up the Incident Review Board, it wouldn’t be.
At a public study session Oct. 10, Aurora City Attorney Charlie Richardson warned council members against letting the Incident Review Board examine past cases of alleged police brutality. If they did so, Richardson told council members, they wouldn’t get “full participation” from the Police Department.
“Do you want to start this process off in a cloud?” Richardson asked.
Friday, Richardson said the Aurora Police Association told him it would advise officers not to testify about the Bonner case at the Incident Review Board because of potential liability in the suit.
If the cops stonewall, Richardson said, “we’d be getting off to a bad start.”
Not nearly as bad as the one they’re off to now.
Though council members swear it’s not true, it looks as if cops not only do the shooting but also call the shots in Aurora. Meanwhile, city leaders ignore history.
That means they might be doomed to repeat it.
When you’re dealing with police killing unarmed citizens, it’s hard to think of a cloudier forecast.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com
