“The Aurora Police Department is ready and willing to help our federal partners, including those working at the ICE GEO facility,” said Aurora police Chief Todd Chamberlain. “In order for us to effectively respond to and assist our federal partners with calls for service, we need to receive timely and accurate information. That unfortunately did not happen, as demonstrated by the facts of this incident.
“The Aurora Police Department is dedicated to serving and protecting the city of Aurora community. The ICE GEO facility is a holding center for people who come from all over the state of Colorado, not specifically from Aurora, and there is nothing to indicate at this time the escapees have any ties to our city.
“The city of Aurora did not create this situation, but I want to assure our residents that an active investigation is underway to determine if these individuals have any connection with Aurora. If these two men are hiding out in our city, we will find them and return them to custody.”
According to the Memorandum of Understanding between the Aurora Police Department and the ICE GEO facility, the Aurora Police Department may respond to “hot” escape situations and officers are assigned to man designated perimeter positions in the vicinity of the GEO facility. A “hot” escape is defined as one that has just occurred in the last 15 minutes and has been immediately reported to police. Officers have the authority to detain an escapee, who would be returned to federal custody unless reasonable suspicion exists that a detainee also committed a felony in the course of the escape.
A “cold” escape is defined as one that is discovered during a head count or is more than 15 minutes old. According to the MOU, ICE GEO officials are required to report the escape for documentation in an APD police report.
In the interest of providing the community with accurate information, below is a timeline of events as we understand them from information provided to us by ICE GEO officials, APD reports and Aurora911 CAD call notes. All times are approximate.
9:30 p.m. Tuesday – Power goes out at the ICE GEO facility, causing the doors of at least one exit to become unlocked. ICE officials begin emergency head count.
10 p.m. Tuesday – Estimated time ICE GEO officials believe two detainees escaped.
12:30 a.m. Wednesday – Emergency head count completed. ICE GEO officials confirm two detainees are missing.
2:30 a.m. Wednesday – ICE GEO officials call Aurora911 to report a possible escape of two detainees and request APD response. Due to the lack of information in the initial call, an APD watch commander called ICE GEO officials to clarify the limited and unclear information in the original call notes. During the call with ICE GEO officials, the watch commander learned the escape happened approximately four and one-half hours before it was reported to police. It was determined the timeline of events did not meet the definition of a “hot” escape report, in accordance with the MOU. The call was queued for follow-up.
5:15 a.m. Wednesday – Aurora patrol officer responds to ICE GEO and meets with facility officials to take a report.
Copies of the police report, CAD calls for the relevant timeline and APD’s MOU with ICE GEO are available in the below document container.