The consent decree monitor overseeing the Aurora Police Department called on city officials to examine in more depth how police respond to critical incidents involving mental health crises following three fatal shootings in the last year.
Independent Monitor Jeff Schlanger, who oversees the consent decree for the City of Aurora and the APD, recommended in a special report Wednesday that the city create a task force to review the three fatal shootings.
The challenge of mental health and its intersection with policing is not unique to Aurora — it is also a state and nationwide challenge, according to Schlanger’s report. Aurora has also taken steps to improve its response to such crises, but continuous improvement is a vital part of the consent decree, he added.
Aurora entered into the consent decree in 2021 to implement sweeping changes to policing, notably in the use of force and how officers engage with residents. The decree is in its fifth and final year.
Wednesday’s report comes a little over a month after the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old Amare Garlington, who stabbed an officer multiple times in the head.
Officer Mark Moore sustained life-threatening injuries in the stabbing and was released from the hospital in late April. Garlington also stabbed his K-9, Cyrus, which received emergency veterinary care and survived the injuries.
Garlington had a history of legal and mental health issues up to the time of his death, family members said.
The call for service that ended in Garlington’s death began as a behavioral health crisis call, the report said. Officers and mental health clinicians tried to de-escalate the situation, but the suspect charged with a knife, according to the report.
The report pointed to two other recent police shootings involving mental health crises — the September shooting of 17-year-old Blaze Balle-Mason, who was shot after threatening to open fire in a gas station, and the May 2025 shooting of 32-year-old Rashaud Johnson, who was shot during a trespassing call at the Parking Spot near Denver International Airport.
Both Johnson and Balle-Mason were unarmed and experiencing mental health crises, the report said.
Schlanger’s special report is not intended to address the legalities of any uses of force. Rather, it calls on the department to treat Garlington’s shooting as a “catalyst for the next stage of reform” that looks at how departments can best respond to behavioral health crises, the report said.
That reform also extends beyond police response and into systemic questions about how mental health is treated, the report said.
“A Police Department can improve policy, training, supervision, de-escalation practices, force review, and accountability systems, and still find officers repeatedly confronting situations that are downstream from shortcomings elsewhere in the public system,” Schlanger wrote in the report.
Currently, Aurora has a Crisis Response Team that pairs crisis clinicians, case managers and crisis intervention-trained officers to respond to mental health crises. Aurora Mental Health and Recovery has 24-hour walk-in crisis services.
City officials continue to build on crisis response partnerships and have “wholeheartedly embraced a culture of continuous improvement,” city spokesperson Ryan Luby said in a statement Wednesday.
“Chief (Todd) Chamberlain, Chief (Alec) Oughton and other city leaders recognize the need to examine the broader systemic issues involving behavioral health, agree with the consent decree monitor’s recommendations and welcome deeper conversations about this topic with all community stakeholders,” Luby said.
Schlanger’s report made several recommendations to the city, including convening a task force to review police incidents involving mental health crises. The task force should consist of representatives from the police department, Aurora Fire Rescue, the city, Aurora Mental Health and Recovery, Colorado Behavioral Health Administration and other state and federal agencies, the report said.
It also asked the city to review the overall behavioral health response system.
“Three young individuals are dead. A police officer was gravely injured. A police canine was seriously hurt. Three families have suffered irreversible losses. All responders and clinicians will carry the consequences of each event forever,” the report said. “Aurora cannot change what happened on each of those fateful days. But it can potentially learn from them.”