Officer Complaints, Discipline To Be Made Public: Aurora Chief

AURORA, IL — The Aurora Police Department is set to make it easier for residents to learn about investigations into police misconduct, Chief Kristen Ziman said Thursday in a letter posted on Facebook.

City employees are creating an online portal to publish information about complaints against officers the results of internal investigations conducted by the department's Office of Professional Standards, Ziman said. The portal is expected to be launched within the next two weeks.

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Previously, the department only made information about OPS investigations available through Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Aurora Police Department has been the site of multiple protests over the past two weeks calling for police reform and an end to police brutality against black people.

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Protesters demonstrated outside APD headquarters May 31 before marching to the Chicago Premium Outlets and then downtown. Activists organized another demonstration June 3 after an Aurora resident was arrested at his home and charged with two misdemeanors before Mayor Richard Irvin and Ziman dropped the charges against him the next morning.

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Residents have also organized smaller protests throughout the city to support the Black Lives Matter movement and calls for police reform.

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Earlier this week, Irvin released a four-point CHANGE Reform Initiative, including reviews of the Aurora Police Department’s use-of-force and training policies. He also announced the city is working to equip all officers with body cameras. In her letter Thursday, Ziman said the department started buying body cameras this week.

Ziman also said she would support the creation of a civilian review board — the fourth point in Irvin’s new initiative — if it "assists in building trust and transparency." A civilian review board is a body composed of citizen representatives that is charged with investigating complaints about misconduct by police officers.

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"Law enforcement as a whole has failed our black and brown brothers and sisters, and it shouldn’t have," Ziman wrote. “As a leader in the law enforcement community, I am sorry for injustices and pain that some in our profession have caused individuals and their families nationwide.”

However, Ziman defended Aurora police from comparisons with the four officers charged in connection with George Floyd’s death last month in Minneapolis.

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"I believed that we were making progress at APD, but over the past two weeks, many have painted our profession with the same broad brush," Ziman wrote. "The murder of George Floyd at the hands of four police officers is inexcusable, and I’m disgusted by it, but that is not reflective of all police officers."

The Aurora Police Department has not responded to multiple requests from Patch for information about Office of Professional Standards reviews of use-of-force incidents during the May 31 protest in Aurora.