AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — Aurora City Council member Danielle Jurinsky painted a grim picture through a tweet she shared.
In that tweet is an email she said was sent to police with a claim the department was one emergency call away from having to ask another department for help covering the city.
“We don’t have enough police officers, and the criminals know that,” Jurinsky said. “We’re down about 80 officers right now.”
The email contained a list of incidents that happened in a span of one day: a homicide, a domestic violence shooting, a stabbing, an officer-involved shooting and a deadly car crash involving a pedestrian.
“You start to worry about mental health, you start to worry about exhaustion,” Jurinsky said.
Jurinsky worries Aurora Police Department is being pushed to the limit.
“These are people that are out there that we’re depending on to make split-second decisions,” Jurinsky said.
The issue, Jurinsky believes, stems from low morale among officers in the department.
“I think we’re doing everything we can to get officers hired,” Jurinsky said. “We’re also working very hard to change the climate.”
Protests against police actions, Jurinsky said, and lawmakers’ leniency on crime is not helping with officer morale either.
“I hope to start seeing support at the state level and that they’ll take a second look at what they’ve done,” Jurinsky said.
Aurora police did confirm Saturday night was busy for their officers, but could not confirm whether the department was one call away from having to call for mutual assistance.