By Brandy Gilliam, P.O.B.U.M.S. SOCIETY; Sandra González, Aurora Rapid Response Team
We, the Aurora Grassroots Alliance, condemn Aurora mayor Richard Irvin and Police Chief Kristin Ziman’s inflammatory remarks about community activists during their February 3 media briefing on the City’s uptick in crime.
Irvin opened the media briefing, after reciting the names of those lost in the past year to gun violence, by saying “for those in Aurora who regularly stand up for what you believe is injustice, where are your voices now?”
Let our voices be clear. Unaddressed issues such as housing insecurity, food insecurity, insufficient youth services, and limitations to affordable mental health and medical services are contributors to crime and gang activity within communities. These are exactly the issues that grassroots organizations and activists in Aurora have been attempting to provide long-term solutions to. Many grassroots organizations in Aurora have been on the frontlines for years, working tirelessly to provide resources and solutions to issues of crime, homelessness, food insecurity, and youth outreach. We believe the best way to resolve our community’s crime issues is to address it at the root.
We do not condone the rise in crime. We hope that justice is served for those individuals who lost their lives and their families who lost a loved one. We believe that the Aurora Police Department’s 77 million dollar budget is abundantly resourced to achieve justice for those lost lives. Irvin eluded that his administration would provide even more resources to the police department’s already bloated budget. We don’t believe that it’s in our community’s best interest to keep throwing money on a band-aid approach.
Irvin and Ziman abused their public platform to take a retaliative aim at community activists and grassroots organizers who have been critical of the city and the police department over the last couple of years. Ziman went so far as to conclude that activists who used certain terminology to describe police “are not law-abiding citizens”. The head of our city’s police department spewed anti-activist rhetoric, outrageously deduced that those individuals are criminals, and then wonders why there is mistrust of the police.
Mayor Irvin and Chief Ziman have had numerous opportunities over the years to address issues of police misconduct, provide wrap-around services that meet black and brown community members’ needs, and have productive conversations with grassroots organizers that could have resulted in meaningful reform for our communities. Instead, we find ourselves left on the sidelines, looking at the performative actions enacted and lauded by elected officials who at best see their own charity as sweeping reform; however, they remain disconnected from the realities that our black and brown community members face. We get vilified for the criminalization of our black and brown youth; yet, they remain silent when we mobilize for change. The very individuals meant to serve us, instead manipulate the media, hold themselves in high esteem, and co-opt our demands in the name of One Aurora, while our most vulnerable question remains, “What will tomorrow bring?”
We call on mayor Irvin and Chief Ziman to stop wasting time by blaming and bullying private residents and grassroots activist. The city needs to examine ways to reallocate funding to address the root causes of the rise in crime. Invest in our youth and our community, rather than throwing even more money at, and expecting solutions from, reactive policing.