Dispatch Records Show Aurora Police Took Nearly Three Hours to Reach Damaged Garden
911 audio released this week shows a dispatcher repeatedly telling a caller no officer was available while a community garden was being torn apart.
By Lucas Navarro ·
Police in Aurora took close to three hours to reach a community garden where a person was causing damage on Aug. 8, according to 911 audio and dispatch records obtained by Denver7 Investigates.
The initial call reached Aurora911 shortly before 1 p.m. Mathew King, who was not yet at the scene, reported someone at the Denver Urban Gardens site near East 16th Avenue and Yosemite Street was being destructive and throwing rocks. A dispatcher asked whether anyone was hurt or in danger. King said he was not aware of anyone in danger and described the confrontation as verbal. The dispatcher told him to stay separated from the person and call back if the situation changed.
About 15 minutes later, King called again from the garden. "I'm watching him tear apart our garden," he told the dispatcher, adding that the person was breaking cinder blocks and had rocks in hand. King said people at the garden felt threatened, but told the dispatcher the rocks were being thrown at objects rather than at people. The dispatcher urged everyone to keep their distance. "Property can be replaced. People cannot. So please, please don't approach him," the dispatcher said. Throughout these exchanges, the dispatcher explained that no officer was free to send.
The city said the call was handled correctly under its own rules. Aurora classifies incidents by priority, and this call was logged as Priority 3, which covers property crime, disturbances and nonviolent activity that carries a low threat to personal safety. The city said the call could have been filed as either a disturbance or vandalism, and both would have remained Priority 3. Aurora Police and Aurora911 declined requests for on-camera interviews.
The department said the delay came from demand elsewhere in the city. Between 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. that day, Aurora handled 11 Priority 1 calls and 15 Priority 2 calls, according to the city. Officers also spent an average of 87 minutes and 44 seconds at call sites that day. Aurora Police said it does not track response times for Priority 3 calls, a practice Mayor Pro Tem Alison Coombs questioned.
"I do wonder if any crimes in progress should be classified as Priority 3, or if we should always be checking our response times for crimes in progress that are reported," Coombs said. She said the incident points to a policy question for the council about how calls are classified, particularly crimes in progress. Coombs also said she asked the city manager what it would cost to add mobile response teams after the garden story was first reported. Aurora has since moved toward adding a fourth Aurora Mobile Response Team, which pairs a licensed mental health professional with an EMT or paramedic on nonviolent calls where police action is not required. The unit would cost about $243,000.
Coombs said another team could have helped at the garden. Aurora Police disagreed, saying the added capacity would not have changed the outcome in this case. The department also said it cannot replace law enforcement when behavior may escalate, and described alternative response programs as partial support rather than a complete solution. Two months later, damaged beehives and a water tank at the garden have been repaired with equipment funded by Denver Urban Gardens.
The fourth mobile response team sits in Aurora's proposed 2027 budget, with council votes scheduled for Nov. 9 and Nov. 23. The man arrested in connection with the garden damage and other area crimes remains in the Adams County Jail and is due in court Thursday for a review hearing.
