10-30-25 Interview - Aurora PD Chief Todd Chamberlain

Joining me. I'm thrilled to have with us.

Now.

He's been at the Aurora Police Department as chief for about a year ish, now coming from the Los Angeles Police Department after decades there, Police Chief Todd Chamberlain, Welcome to the Mandy Connell Show.

Hey, thank you, Mandy very much. Glad to be here.

Well, let me ask you a little bit.

You came from Los Angeles, which seems like that's kind of a I mean, we've all watched the cop shows, right, I feel like I'm practically a member of the LAPD after all the cop shows that I've watched. How does that department and coming to Aurora, how are they different?

You know what may be inside a little bit, but I think the passion for the profession is very consistent in both organizations. You have individuals that are really committed to unity service and again, I think you have a community that really appreciates the needs law enforcement and trying to have that collaboration and that input.

I think that is without question, one of the similar.

So you walked into a situation and I'm sure you looked into Aurora's Police department before you even put in the application. Aurora PD has had a bumpy few years, and outsider looking in, I would say there has been a there was for some time a critical failure of leadership in that department. And I have several Aurora Police Department officers who communicate with me on a regular basis, some now former Aurora.

PD people who left before you got there.

When you came in, what did you do to establish with the ranks that you were going to lead them out of that to a better position both in the community within the department, sort of work on those whole relations while working on the relations within the building.

Yeah, and that was something I'm very happy because I've actually had experiences going through organizations where they did have troubling times where there was a rough path, where everything wasn't perfect.

And so again that skill set and that.

Knowledge really helped me here be able to step into this organization.

And I think something else to remember too.

It wasn't just specifically maybe the City of Aurora, but law enforcement in general.

I think over the past five years has had.

A really hard time. I think it's been unnecessarily villainized. I think that it really impacted how law enforcement practitioners perform their function and their duty and so for me, it was an opportunity to step into an environment that I was aware of, an environment that I've experienced in the path, and let them know that I'm here to support them as well as support the community. And so that first thing was letting them know again that they

Do you feel like morale in the building has improved, because I'll tell you, you know, comments that I get a few years ago were not good and a lot of the officers there were like, I'm just looking to do something different. Do you feel like morale has improved? And are you seeing better retention in that respect?

Yeah, Actually, we keep track of all that, and so without question, morale has definitely seemed to be going.

In the right directory. We're going in the right way.

Get a lot of positive feedback, and it's not just what I hear just there's a lot of people that can just take a your ear, but it's what I hear from the community. It's what I hear other people saying that officers are telling them and how they're how they're being served, and how they feel confident in performing their job and their task.

Because it's a really challenging job. This is not a job for the week.

And I don't mean week physically, I mean just just the week in heart, because it's really complex.

It takes a lot out of you.

It's a huge commitment, but the payoff is immeasurable if it's done correctly and done properly. And so when you talk about attrition again, we are really in a good place. We are actually approaching for the time in a very long time. As of January, the department should be at full staffing levels of what we are authorized. So that's a huge win, not only for the City of Aurora. That's unique in law enforcement across the nation to have actually full staffing.

So I know that what our men and women are doing.

Is resonating with them. And then also our attrition ring has really dropped off from where we were losing a lot of people in the organization. And three we had a twelve percent attrition rate where a lot of people were leaving. Twenty four we had a nine percent and right now here to date we're at about a.

Five percent attrition rate. So people are coming into the organization and the people that are here are staying. So those two things are incredibly positive.

Oh.

Is that part of the reason that Aurora has seen a pretty good drop in violent crime? A few years ago they were the number one city in the state and violent crime rates and now they have dropped below Denver. Is it because of that continuity of officer?

Is it because you're at full staff.

I think it's more than just the staffing, and I think it's a myriad of different things. And those things one involved the technology that we have introduced, which have been incredibly helpful to allow the officers to.

Perform their task more efficiently and effectively.

I think also if you look at some of the policy modifications that we have done in regards to both internal and external things, and what I mean by that is administrative issues or how personal complaints are handled, how force reviews they're done, giving ownership back to our leadership, letting them know that they are leaders within the organizations, which was.

Not part of the equation before.

And then it's also been modifications to how we fight crime, and that's been a big part of it. One of those aspects again involved the pursuit policy. So when I first got here, if an officer dout behind the stolen car activated their emergency lights because they've verified, hey, this car was stolen, only thing a person had to do accelerate away and our officers would turn off the lights, make a left turn and go away.

I couldn't abide by that.

You're talking to fellon the offense committed by somebody, and when you think of the loss of the car, that can be incredibly detrimental to someone and change their whole life. And so we modified our pursuit policy which allowed our officers to go into pursuit of those vehicles effectively do it, making sure we're doing it properly and ethically.

And with that we have seen again we're I think we went from.

Five pursuits last year to right now as far as pursuits were, stolen vehicles were somewhere in the area of about one and eighty eight, So that has drastically changed. But what's more important than just to pursue or the stopping of that stolen vehicle is what we are finding of stealing vehicles. We're having people that are on parole, people that are on probation. We're getting a lot of hand guns out of these vehicles. We're getting a lot

But I think a big.

Part of that is allowing police officers to get police officers to get letting them know.

That I want to see proactive policing.

I want to see individuals that are victimizing other people taken off the street, not just with radio calls, but with just foundationally solid proactive policing. So that has really been the term. It's not one thing, it's just it's a miriad of different loans.

How is the.

Relationship between activist organizations and Aurora who have had and I would say in pass rightfully so, they've had concerns about policing and police leadership. How is your relationship with some of those organizations, you know, I.

Hope it's solid. I hope it's a good relationship. But I also I'm very open about this. I'm not going to have an entire city be evaluated by small particular groups. And what I mean by that is sometimes you can get what I always call the loudest duck in the room, whereas the people that screen, that that protest, that yell, that say everything is wrong, and organizations and maybe even the City of Aurora, the or police department basically.

Capgual ages for those small groups.

And what really is kind of frustrating is that the larger silent group that really doesn't say anything, that doesn't you know, have that that that vocal nature, they get forgotten. And within that forgotten group is a lot of victimization. And so again I I without question here I understand the voices of the activist groups.

I am here to support them in every way I possibly can.

This department is here to support them, but I also know that there's a much larger population that we have to focus on as well, and so that balance, to me, is really important making sure that one we listen to those individuals that have problems, concerns and issues, but also they don't set the narrative for the entire population of the entire community, and unfortunately, I think in a lot of ways, especially over the past five years, that unfortunately has been normalized.

Aimen to that, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain. I really appreciate you stop and buy for a visit. I'd love to have you for a longer visit next time. Keep up the good work.

Thank you so much. I have a great day, all right.

That is Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain,