Art Acevedo sworn in as Aurora police chief

Aurora has sworn in its second interim chief of police as a search for the permanent chief remains underway.

Wearing the Aurora Police Department uniform, Art Acevedo officially took the helm of APD at a Monday evening swearing in ceremony. He succeeds the previous interim chief, Dan Oates, who played a hand in recruiting Acevedo to the position.

Acevedo has led a tumultuous and widely-followed career — from gaining national attention for walking alongside racial justice protesters and a reputation as a reform-friendly chief to being fired from his last post as Miami’s chief of police, prompting him to file a wrongful termination lawsuit. He went on to become a contributor for national news organizations, while also running a law enforcement consulting business. Acevedo and CNN ended his contributor agreement early so that he can step into Aurora’s interim role, he said on Twitter.

Oates, the outgoing interim chief, will head home to Florida and go back into retirement. Oates, who was the city’s chief of police from 2005 to 2014, left Aurora to serve as the Miami Beach chief of police until his retirement in 2019. He came out of retirement to serve as the Aurora interim chief after former chief Vanessa Wilson was fired.

Mayor Pro Tem Francoise Bergan and Councilmember Dustin Zvonek thanked Oates for his service to the city.

Zvonek said Oates did “an incredible job putting our police department back on their toes.” Oates showed “that there is a balance that can be struck” between building community relationships and constitutional policing, Zvonek said.

Councilmember Juan Marcano said Acevedo will be available to meet the community at his ward’s upcoming town meeting in January.

Aurora remains in the midst of a rocky search for its permanent chief. The city had selected four finalists for the job but started the search over in the fall after community concern about a lack of diversity among finalists, and the withdrawal of all but one finalist.

In an earlier news release announcing his appointment as interim chief, Acevedo said he is “intimately familiar with the challenges facing diverse communities like Aurora.”

And, at a November conference, the new interim chief discussed pressures in the industry, his love for the profession and how he will address challenges Aurora faces while seeking to repair community relations.

He called this generation of police officers “the best generation in my 35 years,” although the work to improve the profession never ends, he said. He said he has “a great deal of respect” for the department and will “never forget the heroism” officers showed the day of the Aurora theater shooting.

Acevedo is grateful that city leaders are not defunding the police, he said, and that they understand “good policing requires an investment. It requires the proper funding for training, equipment. It requires having a benefits package and pay that attracts the very best.”

Acevedo found unity among councilmembers, he said, within their desire for a safe community.

The interim chief said the profession is under strain. Police chiefs used to last three to five years. Amid the tumultuous climate of the past three years, he’s watched as they last as little as 18 months, he said.

During the press conference, Acevedo had also discussed some of his perspective on officer accountability. The interim chief has already asked whether APD has a disciplinary matrix so that officers know what happens if they violate rules. He is also a proponent of education-based discipline, he said, calling a suspension merely punitive.

There is not such thing as perfection, Acevedo said, adding it feels as if he public sometimes expects that standard. Officers have to process situations at lightning speed, he said.

“Even in the most tragic situations, the officers are not making mistakes of the heart, they are making mistakes of the mind. It’s not TV. They don’t get a second or third take. It’s not Hollywood,” he said.