The Aurora Police Department made numerous changes to its SWAT operations after one of the team’s members killed an unarmed man last year, according to a new report from the independent monitor overseeing court-ordered reform at the agency.
Kilyn Lewis, a 37-year-old Black man, was unarmed, holding a phone and raising his hands in the air when Officer Michael Dieck, a member of SWAT at the time, shot him as the team tried to arrest Lewis on attempted-murder charges on May 23, 2024.
Lewis’s killing sparked outrage among his family and community members and raised questions about how Aurora police handled the attempted arrest.
IntegrAssure, the independent consent-decree monitor over Aurora police, previously raised concerns about why the SWAT team was sent to serve the warrant, why the officers did not use less-lethal weapons and why the team approached Lewis without any protective cover. The Florida-based police oversight firm also noted Dieck had previous on-duty shootings and questioned whether he should have been allowed on the SWAT team.
The department made previously undisclosed changes to address each of those concerns, even though Lewis’ killing was found to be within the law and Aurora police policy, according to a report released Tuesday by IntegrAssure.
Dieck, who had served on the SWAT team for eight years, was removed from that assignment after the killing, according to the report.
“…A decision not solely based on this incident but also grounded in considerations of officer wellness, community trust and a comprehensive assessment of past engagements,” the report said.
An Aurora police spokeswoman did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
The police department also expanded the SWAT team’s use of less-lethal weapons and now requires a commander or division chief to be present at all SWAT callouts whenever possible. The SWAT team changed the way it handles high-risk stops and how it approaches barricaded suspects to ensure officers stay behind cover longer, according to the report.
The SWAT team also developed a formal system for categorizing warrants as high- or low-risk, which will reduce the frequency with which the team serves arrest and search warrants because SWAT will only handle such arrests if the warrant is considered high-risk, according to the report.
The SWAT team has increased its focus on training and incorporated “rigorous physical and psychological evaluations” into the selection and retention process for SWAT officers, according to the report.
Going forward, officers who have been involved in more than one on-duty shooting will be individually evaluated to determine whether they should join or remain on the SWAT team, according to the report.
“This assessment will consider the circumstances of each incident, the officer’s overall performance history, officer wellness and community trust to ensure that SWAT remains staffed with officers who uphold the highest operational standards and in whom the community has confidence,” the report reads.
The cumulative effect of the changes on the SWAT team is an overall “shift in SWAT’s operational philosophy,” and a change in the team’s internal culture to emphasize collaboration instead of “top-down mandates,” according to the report.
“Under Chief (Todd) Chamberlain’s leadership, SWAT has scaled back non-critical deployments, so the unit is reserved for high-risk, complex operations where their specialized training is most needed,” the report reads. “This strategic shift prioritizes deliberate, well-planned responses over reactive deployments, allowing SWAT to deploy with all necessary tools and tactics in play while maintaining maximum control over tempo and positioning.”
Lewis’ family has protested the district attorney’s decision not to file criminal charges against Dieck. An attorney for the family did not immediately return a request for comment Wednesday.
Problems in the Aurora police SWAT team have been longstanding, said Qusair Mohamedbhai, whose law firm previously represented the Lewis family but no longer does. Naeschylus Carter-Vinzant, an unarmed Black man, was killed by an Aurora SWAT officer as the team attempted to arrest him on a warrant in March 2015, Mohamedbhai pointed out.
Aurora agreed to a $2.6 million settlement in that killing and said the department would make reforms.
“The tragic death of Naeschylus Carter exposed a lot of the concerns with the tactics used by Aurora’s SWAT officers and the fact that we see them continuing today is very disheartening,” Mohamedbhai said. “Because Aurora did not learn the necessary lessons they needed to learn from the death of Naeschylus Carter.”
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