The primary name got here from her nephew. Then, information stations began reaching out, asking how she felt that the Aurora police officer accountable for her son’s dying had not been charged.
“Proper there, I swore to myself at that second that I might by no means cease combating till we bought justice,” LaRonda Jones, the mom of Kilyn Lewis, mentioned. “I’ll proceed to battle even tougher — not just for justice in my son’s dying, however for all these different dad and mom, all these different moms and dads and grandparents, who’ve gone by means of the identical factor I’m going by means of.”
Colorado law enforcement officials and sheriff’s deputies shot somebody roughly each six days in 2024, based on knowledge compiled by The Denver Put up. They killed 39 individuals, together with Lewis, and wounded 22 others, for a complete of 61.
That’s down 4 shootings from 2023, when legislation enforcement killed 43 Coloradans and injured one other 22. Colorado nonetheless ranked eighth within the nation final 12 months for deadly police shootings per capita, with 6.93 people killed per million residents, based on nationwide knowledge from Mapping Police Violence.
Black individuals had been disproportionately killed by legislation enforcement in Colorado — a development that persists throughout the nation, based on the group’s data on deadly police shootings — and one legislation enforcement company noticed a 250% improve in police shootings between 2023 and 2024.
Lewis, a 37-year-old Black man, was unarmed and holding a cellphone when Aurora law enforcement officials shot him in the parking lot of an apartment complex final Might. He was shot inside six seconds of officers surrounding him and shouting instructions.
Lewis was needed on suspicion of tried first-degree homicide in a separate Aurora taking pictures earlier that month.
“Black individuals had been extra more likely to be killed by police, extra more likely to be unarmed and fewer more likely to be threatening somebody when killed,” Mapping Police Violence’s 2024 report said. “Police disproportionately kill Black individuals, 12 months after 12 months.”
Who did Colorado legislation enforcement shoot?
Nearly all of individuals shot and killed by legislation enforcement in each 2023 and 2024 had been white males armed with weapons, based on the information compiled by The Put up.
Nonetheless, Black Coloradans had been overrepresented within the knowledge, which incorporates info from legislation enforcement businesses, coroner’s workplaces and nationwide databases.
Almost 13% of individuals killed by Colorado legislation enforcement in 2024 had been Black, however Black individuals make up lower than 4% of the state’s inhabitants, based on the U.S. Census Bureau.
The share of Black Coloradans shot by legislation enforcement might be even increased, mentioned Julie Ward, an assistant professor at Vanderbilt College who research public coverage and gun violence, together with police shootings.
“Once we embody each deadly and harm shootings nationally, it seems that racial disparities may very well be worse than we thought,” Ward mentioned. “If we’re solely taking a look at deadly shootings, then we’re disregarding extra accidents to Black survivors.”
The Put up was unable to run the same evaluation due to the shortage of demographic info accessible on individuals who had been shot by Colorado legislation enforcement brokers however survived.
The federal authorities has by no means efficiently mandated that legislation enforcement businesses report use-of-force incidents, leaving many researchers to depend on protection from native media, mentioned Andrea Borrego, a professor of prison justice and criminology at Metropolitan State College of Denver.
Some states, together with Colorado, have began requiring complete reporting, however that doesn’t all the time work, she mentioned.
Colorado’s Regulation Enforcement Integrity Act requires the Division of Legal Justice’s Office of Research and Statistics to report knowledge submitted by state and native legislation enforcement on citizen contacts and use of drive.
Nonetheless, no knowledge was but accessible for 2024, and the workplace’s database solely recorded 20 cases in 2023 during which an officer or deputy fired a gun at a suspect. That’s a 45-case hole between the state’s knowledge and what The Put up recorded in 2023.
“It’s very obvious what is occurring to our group, however… it goes past the information. It goes past the analysis and the research,” mentioned MiDian Shofner, CEO of the Denver-based Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership. “There are issues about these tales that aren’t reported, and that, I feel, is the place I can say that our group is aware of that this can be a actuality.”
She mentioned the information doesn’t present the insults hurled on the households once they attempt to “be a voice for his or her family members” — together with an occasion when Aurora Metropolis Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock referred to as Lewis’s household and different group organizers “a bunch of bullies, terrorists, anarchists, opportunists, provocateurs and others who want to lift their voices so they can get social media clicks” — or how legislation enforcement businesses typically shut them out.
“These are knowledge factors they don’t have a system for,” Shofner mentioned. “That harm, that ache, that actuality goes past any analysis in any research.”
Frank Powels, 44; Kristin Dock, 32; Everett Shockley, 42; and Kory Dillard, 38, had been all Black males additionally killed in 2024 by legislation enforcement in Broomfield, Jefferson and Arapahoe counties.
Powels, Dock and Shockley had been armed — two with weapons and one with a damaged broomstick deal with — however Dillard was holding a replica airsoft rifle.
“You don’t get an opportunity to redo this scene and this act over once more,” Jones, Lewis’s mom, mentioned. “If you take a life, that’s it. There’s no getting back from that. And that’s what we’re dealing with and coping with daily.”
The Douglas and Adams County coroners declined to launch sufferer names and demographic info to The Put up, leaving the ages, races and genders of 15% of individuals killed by legislation enforcement in 2024 and 14% in 2023 unknown.
Different findings by The Put up embody:
- Regardless of making up almost 70% of Colorado’s inhabitants, 50% of individuals shot and killed by state legislation enforcement in 2024 had been white.
- Three girls in 2023 and two girls in 2024 had been fatally shot by Colorado legislation enforcement. That’s 7% and 5% of all victims killed in every of these years.
- About 32% of individuals shot and killed by police in 2023 had been Hispanic, although they make up 23% of Colorado’s inhabitants. In 2024, 23% of deadly police taking pictures victims had been Hispanic.
- A minimum of three individuals shot in 2023 and 5 individuals shot in 2024 had been unarmed or not reported to be armed by legislation enforcement.
- A minimum of 5 individuals shot in 2023 and 6 in 2024 had been suicidal or experiencing a psychological well being disaster.
- Roughly 67% of these shot and killed by police in 2024 had been adults beneath the age of 45. That age group solely makes up 37% of Colorado’s inhabitants, based on federal knowledge.
- A minimum of 17 individuals shot by police in 2024 had been fleeing legislation enforcement of their automotive or on foot, up from 11 in 2023. One other 10 police shootings stemmed from site visitors stops in 2024, greater than double the 4 site visitors cease shootings documented in 2023.
- The commonest calls that escalated into police shootings had been disturbances, fights and stories of suspicious individuals, accounting for roughly a 3rd of incidents in each 2023 and 2024. Of these calls, eight in 2023 and 6 in 2024 included allegations of home violence.
- Greater than a dozen shootings every year — at the very least 17 in 2023 and 13 in 2024 — stemmed from officers attempting to serve an arrest warrant or contact a suspect in against the law.
A wide range of components impression police shootings — together with particular legislation enforcement businesses’ coaching of officers and use of drive insurance policies, native crime charges, firearm possession, group variety and which businesses are accountable for responding to psychological well being crises — so numbers are unpredictable from 12 months to 12 months.
Throughout the nation, essentially the most frequent occasions that escalate into deadly police shootings contain verbal or bodily threats, Ward mentioned. That features assaults, home violence incidents and other people “verbalizing threats of hurt to themselves or others.”
Police shootings escalating from well-being checks or different “social wants” had been much less widespread throughout the nation, however extra more likely to be deadly, she mentioned.
Ward mentioned the information calls consideration to a possibility for a distinct response, the place individuals ought to be capable of consider police as a final resort when a “higher match” answer isn’t accessible. She mentioned cities ought to spend money on extra focused responses to those social must “cut back publicity to the potential harms from policing.”
Which departments had essentially the most incidents?
Eight Colorado legislation enforcement businesses noticed vital will increase in police shootings between 2023 and 2024, starting from 50% to 250%.
In whole, 12 businesses that had zero incidents in 2023 documented at the very least one police taking pictures in 2024, based on The Put up’s knowledge. Alternatively, 20 departments that had at the very least one police taking pictures in 2023 reported no incidents final 12 months.
Thornton law enforcement officials shot seven individuals in 2024, killing six of them. That’s the best of any Colorado legislation enforcement company final 12 months and a 250% improve from the 2 individuals shot in Thornton police in 2023.
One Thornton officer was shot when a 27-year-old man resisted arrest and grabbed the officer’s gun after reportedly assaulting somebody at a close-by fuel station. One other two officers had been injured in an hours-long standoff and shootout that rattled Thornton’s Orchard Farms subdivision and ended with the suspect lifeless.
In every of Thornton’s six deadly police shootings, the suspects had been armed and had fired their weapons, although not essentially at individuals, Division Cmdr. Tom Connor mentioned.
“That’s utterly out of the norm for us, not someone being armed in an officer-involved taking pictures, however having six in a single 12 months the place that was the case. That’s completely an anomaly,” Connor mentioned.
Below Colorado legislation, when doable, officers are required to offer suspects an opportunity to conform and use nonlethal drive if accessible, Connor mentioned. Thornton officers didn’t try to make use of nonlethal drive in any of the six deadly shootings, however Connor mentioned the suspects escalated the state of affairs.
Connor mentioned it can be extra harmful for officers to make use of nonlethal drive when persons are armed as a result of it doesn’t instantly incapacitate them. He mentioned it permits the armed suspect to proceed to assault officers or others within the space.
Ultimately, it comes right down to a split-second resolution and officers should act to guard themselves or others in peril, Connor mentioned.
Thornton was adopted intently in 2024 police shootings by Colorado Springs, the place 4 individuals had been killed and two had been wounded; Aurora, the place 4 individuals had been killed and one was wounded; and Denver, the place two individuals had been killed and two had been wounded. Pueblo and Lakewood police shot one other three individuals in every metropolis.
Thornton’s per-capita fee of 4.8 shootings per 100,000 residents in 2024 quadrupled Aurora’s fee of 1.1 and was greater than eight instances Denver’s fee of 0.55.
“In Aurora, based on the 2023 Use of Power Report, arrests and use-of-force incidents have risen yearly since 2021, whilst requires service have steadily declined,” Cat Moring from the Denver Justice Undertaking mentioned in an emailed assertion to The Put up. “This development displays inside coverage choices and a division tradition that continues to prioritize drive over group belief.”
The Aurora Police Division was positioned beneath a consent decree by state officers in 2021 after a Colorado Lawyer Normal’s Workplace investigation into Elijah McClain’s killing discovered a sample of racially biased policing and excessive force.
“Regardless of these reforms, the division has didn’t rebuild belief, as evidenced by the decline in requires police service,” Moring mentioned. “Individuals are calling the police much less as a result of they worry harmful encounters.”
Leaving victims’ households within the lurch
“Language is extraordinarily necessary,” Shofner, the Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership CEO, mentioned. “Oftentimes, when this story is instructed and the narrative is put out, we’ll say that the Black group doesn’t belief the police. I don’t assume that’s saying it the suitable method. It’s that the police have misplaced the belief of the Black group.”
Jones mentioned the shortage of belief additionally stems from the ignorance and communication from legislation enforcement businesses. She mentioned the scarcity of solutions was one of the vital tough issues to cope with after her son’s taking pictures.
As quickly as Jones may after discovering out in regards to the taking pictures, she was on a airplane from her dwelling in Georgia to Colorado. Aurora officers referred to as her whereas she was on the airport, however they might solely direct her to the hospital and didn’t know Lewis’ standing.
“It was actually irritating as a result of I had numerous questions that had been unanswered,” Jones mentioned. “Questions like, ‘Who was the officer who killed my son?’ and ‘What’s going to be achieved about this?’ So numerous anger was increase as I couldn’t get my questions answered.”
Connor mentioned investigators from Colorado’s numerous Essential Incident Response Groups don’t launch info to the concerned departments in the course of the investigations into police shootings. A minimum of for Thornton, regardless of the division releases publicly after the taking pictures — together with physique digicam footage — is all officers exterior of the investigation know, he mentioned.
“Any officer-involved taking pictures can have an effect on public belief,” Connor mentioned. “There’s the potential that it appears like (legislation enforcement) is hiding info from the general public when, in actuality, nearly all of the time we’re not entitled to the knowledge.”
However Jones mentioned her wrestle with the Aurora Police Division continued even after the investigation was closed and no prices had been filed towards SWAT officer Michael Dieck, who shot and killed her son. She mentioned she was nonetheless repeatedly dismissed by the police division.
What occurred to the officers who shot individuals?
Regardless of latest reforms, resembling ending certified immunity in state courtroom, requiring body-worn cameras and mandating decertification for officers who have interaction in misconduct, the edge for what counts as “misconduct” stays terribly excessive, Moring mentioned.
Moring mentioned officers are not often held accountable, and the households of police taking pictures victims are sometimes left to pursue justice on their very own.
“Households are nonetheless pressured to decide on between combating for prison prices or looking for civil cures — not often with the assets, assist or capability to do each,” she mentioned.
All however one of many 43 police shootings in 2023 for which The Put up was capable of acquire resolution letters had been dominated justified.
La Salle police Officer Erik Hernandez took a deal and pleaded guilty in January to manslaughter after shooting and killing 38-year-old Juston Reffel in his automotive exterior of a greenback retailer on Might 3, 2023.
No prices have been filed in any of the 2024 police shootings for which The Put up has obtained copies of district attorneys’ resolution letters.
Jones mentioned she was not shocked when Arapahoe County District Lawyer John Kellner decided not to file charges against Dieck, who shot and killed her son.
Kellner mentioned Dieck “fairly believed there was an imminent hazard of dying or severe bodily harm,” which justified the officer’s use of drive beneath Colorado legislation, based on Kellner’s resolution letter to the police division.
“There’s no therapeutic,” Jones mentioned. “Till we get justice, it gained’t even start.”
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