"This is a broken system": Aurora police hired only 17 new cops in 2022
Aurora City Councilman Dustin Zvonek jokes that it's easier to get into an elite Ivy League university than it is to become an Aurora police officer.
"We're like Harvard but slightly more selective," said Zvonek, during a recent interview.
A CBS News Colorado analysis of Aurora Police Department hiring rates bears that out. In 2022, 1,018 people applied to become Aurora police officers. But so many either dropped out during the process or were eliminated for various reasons that in the end the city only hired 17 new officers, or 1.6% of those that applied.
Asked how Aurora will be able to get a handle on rising crime rates with so few officers making the grade, Zvonek said, "The answer is you don't. If we don't make changes and get adequate officers out in our community, we're not going to see a decrease in crime that we want and we're not going to see a decrease in hold times that people are experiencing." Zvonek said other departments are usually able to hire around 10% of those who apply.
The hiring numbers have been heading in the wrong direction for a city plagued by rising crime rates -- a problem seen in many American cities. APD is authorized to have 744 sworn officers, but as of Dec. 1, 2022, the agency had 694. Retirements, resignations and terminations cost the agency 69 officers in 2022.
"We need to have more officers on the streets," said Zvonek.
In an effort to beef up hiring numbers, Aurora is reforming its hiring practices by adopting more relaxed standards. Admitting to marijuana use within 12 months of applying was previously an automatic disqualifier. A total of 23 applicants were dropped from the process in 2022 due to marijuana use. Now, marijuana use is no longer an automatic disqualifier. The number of questions applicants have to answer during the hiring process has been cut in half, and making a clerical error on an application is also no longer an automatic disqualifier.
Joe Moylan, a spokesperson for the Aurora Police Department, said "We are now evaluating applicants in a holistic, whole person approach. In other words, something that might have been grounds for automatic disqualification in the past might not be today but will still be considered in the total evaluation of each individual applicant."
Moylan went on to say that the APD recruiting unit now personally contacts each applicant during the stages of the hiring process to help guide them through the process. He said previously, "We often didn't lay eyes on an applicant until they showed up for day one of the police academy."
Zvonek believes the process changes will not lower the quality of the officers who are eventually sworn in.
"In no way is this going to compromise the people we are bringing into the department or the professionalism we expect from them."
He said the recent changes are already having an impact as more candidates are making it through the application process and into police academies.
