Aurora mayor plans policy changes for public comment during city council meetings

Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman plans to crack down on public comments in future Aurora City Council meetings after protestors disrupted Monday night’s meetings for the third time.

“I will oppose any extension of the time because so many of the demonstrators increasingly don’t adhere to the three-minute time limit,” Coffman told The Denver Gazette in an email.

Friends and family of Kilyn Lewis marched to the front of the council meeting shouting Lewis’s name when councilmembers refused to extend the time for public hearings.

After the hour of public hearing time was up, eight speakers were left on the schedule.

Councilmembers Ruben Medina, Angela Lawson, and Alison Coombs voted to allow the remaining speakers to be heard, but they were out voted by Coffman and the remaining six councilmembers.

The meeting continued virtually in a separate room while the remaining eight speakers addressed their comments to Aurora Police Officers, including Interim Chief of Police Heather Morris.

“We will continue to be back,” said protester Auon’tai Anderson.

Coffman shared his plans for future City Council meetings, saying: “Next time, I will just move the meeting to a virtual one without trying to compete with them.”

The protesters said they want Aurora police officials to fire SWAT Ofc. Michael Dieck and charge him with murder over the shooting death of Kilyn Lewis.

They also requested that Councilmember Stephanie Hancock to formally apologize for referring to the protesters as “terrorists,” in a previous city council meeting.

Lewis was shot and killed by the Aurora police officer in May. The police, who were attempting to arrest Lewis on attempted murder charges, said he did not comply with orders to get on the ground and reached into his back pocket for a cellular phone. He was not armed.

Video footage of the incident showed Lewis rummaging through the trunk of the vehicle. He did not appear to see two vehicles carrying the arresting officers pull up behind him. The video showed officers yelling for him to “get on the ground,” and he started to walk along the driver’s side of the car toward the front. He then took a cell phone of his back pocket and knelt to the ground with his hands up, repeatedly yelling "I don't got nothing."

In the previous meeting on July 8, councilmembers removed from the agenda a resolution that would have expressed the City Council's "apology and condolences" to Lewis’s family.

In Monday’s meeting, Coffman expressed personal condolences to family and friends of Lewis and said he was praying for the city and police.

He also allowed Kilyn Lewis’s mother, LaRonda Jones, to talk three minutes past the alloted hearing time without interruption.

“I am a grieving parent,” said Jones. “I’ll keep showing up until justice is served for my son Kilyn Lewis.”

Denver Gazette Reporter Kyla Pearce contributed to this article.