Demonstrators, including Rajaun Gissendanner (center), gather to protest the fatal police shooting of Kilyn Lewis by interrupting a town hall meeting hosted by Aurora City Council member Stephanie Hancock at Colorado Early Colleges Aurora on Thursday, July 11, 2024. (Photo by Zachary Spindler-Krage/The Denver Post)
A name echoed through the hallways of an Aurora high school Thursday night as protesters disrupted a community meeting to demand accountability for the fatal police shooting of a black man in May: Kilyn Lewis.
Lewis, 37, was shot and killed by Aurora SWAT officer Michael Dieck outside an apartment complex on May 23 as police tried to arrest him on suspicion of attempted murder.
According to body-worn camera video released by the Aurora Police Department, Lewis was unarmed, holding a phone and raising his hands in the air when he was shot.
He died on May 25 from a single gunshot wound.
Lewis’ family and community organizers entered a town hall meeting led by Aurora City Councilwoman Stephanie Hancock at Colorado Early Colleges in Aurora on Thursday night, holding signs and loudly calling his name.
Hancock had called the protesters “terrorists” at a contentious city council meeting on Monday, the Aurora Sentinel reported. She and seven other council members voted to remove a proposed formal apology to Lewis’ family from the agenda.
Protesters led by organizer and former Denver Public Schools board member Auon’tai Anderson briefly attempted to engage Hancock in conversation Thursday night before resuming their chants when Hancock asked them to sit down. She left the meeting room a short time later.
The Aurora Police Department worked with Denver police to arrest Lewis in connection with an attempted murder in Denver on May 5. They had been monitoring him for two days before officers surrounded him as he was getting out of a car at 384 S. Ironton St. near Expo Park in Aurora.
The protest was intended to draw attention to the pattern of Aurora city leaders silencing citizens’ concerns, said organizer Candice Bailey.
“Tonight is really about how the city of Aurora continues to suppress the voice of its citizens in the same way over and over again. The same tactics have been used over and over since Elijah McClain,” she said.
“They are trying to turn loose rules into law and limit the voice of the people, violating their First Amendment rights and our right to speak to our elected officials.”
Bailey called it a “dangerous” blueprint that could be seen across the country and said the city council must apologize for using the term “terrorists,” among other things, to describe the protesters.