{"id":30780,"date":"2022-04-15T17:08:40","date_gmt":"2022-04-15T17:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/?p=30780"},"modified":"2022-04-15T17:08:40","modified_gmt":"2022-04-15T17:08:40","slug":"consultant-defends-contentious-aurora-cop-records-review-touted-in-chiefs-ouster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cjstudents.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/15\/consultant-defends-contentious-aurora-cop-records-review-touted-in-chiefs-ouster\/","title":{"rendered":"Consultant defends contentious Aurora cop records review touted in chief\u2019s ouster\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

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PRI consultant Ed Claughton addresses the Aurora City Council public safety committee March April 14, 2022, remotely via virtual meeting software. SENTINEL SCREEN SHOT<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

AURORA<\/strong> | Lawmakers who supported leadership changes in the police department questioned police officials and a representative of PRI Management Group on Thursday amid ongoing criticism of an explosive report by PRI about a record-keeping backlog.<\/span><\/p>\n

At an April 14 policy committee meeting, council members Danielle Jurinsky and Dustin Zvonek also tried to refute key points of an<\/span> April 13 Sentinel Colorado article<\/span><\/a>, which exposed inconsistencies between allegations made in the report<\/a> and the realities of the record-keeping process in Aurora\u2019s Police Department.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the report \u2014 made public April 5, the day before City Manager Jim Twombly fired Wilson<\/a> \u2014 PRI founder Ed Claughton characterized thousands of police reports that were awaiting transcription by APD\u2019s records section as a serious threat to public safety.<\/span><\/p>\n

Chief Wilson, through her attorney, said last week<\/a> that some members of city council and city management purposely misconstrued the issue and the report to justify her firing, a maneuver based on antipolice reform politics, not public safety.<\/p>\n

Neither city council members nor Claughton addressed information from a Sentinel<\/em> story revealing numerous social media posts<\/a> he\u2019s made over the past few years lambasting police reform efforts across the country as well as Black Lives Matters. Claughton became embroiled in a controversy where police questioned his objectivity during his bid for a contract in Wisconsin about 10 years ago.<\/p>\n

Claughton stood behind his review on Thursday, saying that the transcription backlog was dangerous.<\/p>\n

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Former Aurora Police Chief Vanessa Wilson at a rally supporting her after her ouster as chief last week.\u00bf Philip B. Poston\/Sentinel Colorado<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Transcription in this context refers to the process of checking reports submitted by police officers for inaccuracies in form and attaching national crime category numbers that help with the collection of criminal justice statistics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Also on April 5, Mayor Mike Coffman and others criticized police leadership over the findings of the report, with Coffman posting on social media that \u201cthere is absolutely no excuse for this, and the safety of our residents has been compromised because of a catastrophic failure of leadership within the department.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Mayor Mike Coffman at an April 6, 2022 press conference announcing the firing of Police Chief Vanessa Wilson. PHILIP. B. POSTON\/Sentinel Colorado<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Jurinsky shared a link to a news article about the report and said it was \u201ctime for significant leadership changes in the APD.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While the report blamed police leadership for the struggles in the records section, PRI and Claughton himself have since said the report was not meant to \u201cevaluate or impact the employment of the Chief of Police.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Claughton wrote that police reports \u201cdo not get routed by the system for follow-up action or investigation until the transcription process is complete.\u201d Police told <\/span>The Sentinel<\/span><\/i> last week, however, that investigations regularly take place prior to and during transcription, and that reports awaiting transcription are still immediately viewable in the department\u2019s Versadex records management system.<\/span><\/p>\n

Claughton and police qualified those statements under questioning by Jurinsky and Zvonek Thursday, with Claughton pointing out he had also written that \u201cin some situations, detectives are directly advised of serious crimes and specifically request to have reports transcribed\/approved so they can be printed or filed for prosecution.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Sgt. Faith Goodrich, who on April 8 said reports are accessible in the transcription queue, acknowledged that untrained officers may have difficulty locating backlogged reports in Versadex.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s truth to both statements. They are able to get into there and see all of that, but a lot of them probably don\u2019t know how,\u201d Goodrich said. \u201cIf they haven\u2019t done a stint with detectives or some extra training, they may not know how to do that.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

While Acting Capt. Chris Amsler previously told <\/span>The Sentinel<\/span><\/i> that he did not believe the backlog impacted investigations, Lt. Bob Wesner said the investigations of four child abuse cases and two missing persons cases were delayed by weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Aurora City Manager Jim Twombly at an April 6, 2022 press conference announcing the firing of Police Chief Vanessa Wilson. PHILIP. B. POSTON\/Sentinel Colorado<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Friday when meeting with <\/span>The Sentinel,<\/span><\/i> Amsler said a police lieutenant working with the backlog issue said no murder cases were identified that were substantially affected by the backlog and that while not every one of the cases in the backlog had been reviewed, \u201cwe do not believe that any of those cases that were in the transcription queue affected any of our investigations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Police spokesman Matthew Longshore later wrote in an email that police determined the delay was due to the transcription backlog because \u201cafter finding out about the cases from other sources (DHS, Victims etc.) a search of the database resulted in finding the delays and cases not yet being routed to detective units.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Police did not immediately respond Thursday afternoon to the question of whether it is typical for those types of cases not to be investigated until after transcription takes place. Officials said on April 8 that serious cases, including crimes against children, are usually forwarded for follow-up independent of that process.<\/span><\/p>\n

Twombly said police developed \u201cworkarounds\u201d in fall 2021 to be able to examine cases in the backlog \u2014 at least five of the cases mentioned by Wesner were reported in July 2021 or earlier that year.<\/span><\/p>\n

As he dismissed \u201cmisinformation\u201d\u00a0 that he said had been published by the media in relation to the PRI report, Claughton defended statements in the report about problems such as those facing APD\u2019s records section making the city vulnerable to violent incidents like the 2015 mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Members of the Aurora City Council public safety committee meeting April 14, 2022, taking comment from a consultant and others about a police reports backlog controversy. SENTINEL SCREEN GRAB<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Claughton said one of the reasons that shooter Dylann Roof was able to acquire a firearm was a data entry mistake made by a records employee in connection with a prior drug arrest. Claughton and media outlets that reported on the shooting did not say that the mistake was associated with any transcription backlog.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question that (records) is a high-risk area,\u201d Claughton said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The PRI founder also dubbed as misinformation claims that none of the thousands of reports in the backlog had been investigated. Zvonek previously posted on Twitter that \u201cover 2500 victims \u2026 didn\u2019t have their case investigated\u201d because of the backlog.<\/span><\/p>\n

Claughton said again that he believed a backlog could pose a potentially serious public safety issue.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI recognize through the PRI report the risk we were facing, and I think there can be debate about what level of risk that was,\u201d Twombly said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The city manager and others spoke about the importance of transcription for proofreading reports and as a quality-control measure.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we\u2019re trying to protect our community and keep our officers safe, we want the minimal risk possible, so that\u2019s what we\u2019re shooting for,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Police reported Thursday that the backlog had been reduced to 59 reports.<\/span><\/p>\n

When Zvonek asked why Amsler told<\/span> The Sentinel <\/span><\/i>that no investigations were believed to have been impacted if that was untrue, Twombly did not weigh in definitively on the statement\u2019s accuracy but said that \u201cno one from police or city staff has presented facts or research to me that proves that there has not been an impact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not disputing those statements,\u201d Twombly said. \u201cHowever, I have to reserve judgment about its accuracy until we can research timelines of crimes, transcriptions and initiation of investigations.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Zvonek also referred to \u201ca very public effort to minimize the seriousness of it\u201d in the context of <\/span>The Sentinel<\/span><\/i> article.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that\u2019s bothersome to me is \u2026 instead of trying to focus on what is potentially a very serious threat to our city \u2026 instead of focusing on that, there\u2019s such a desperate effort to discredit it that we\u2019re now having quotes from city officials in the paper that (are) countering a report that was put out by this firm,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

Claughton estimated PRI\u2019s staffing study in the records section would be completed in the next one to two months.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n