AURORA, Colo. — Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain called a last-minute press conference Thursday to "set the record straight" following ICE's claims that the department refused to cooperate after two detainees escaped from an Aurora ICE facility run by The Geo Group on Tuesday night.
"The people of Aurora, they deserve the facts," a frustrated Chamberlain said.
An ICE statement Wednesday night announced that Geilond Vido-Romero, 24, and Joel Jose Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, escaped Tuesday night. In the statement, ICE said, "Local authorities were notified immediately and declined to assist with the search."
In response, APD laid out a timeline of events at the facility during the incident that refute ICE's claim.
Chamberlain said a power outage caused a security breach around 9:30 p.m. Tuesday, allowing Vido-Romero and Gonzalez-Gonzalez to escape around 10 p.m. However, the chief said, ICE did not realize the two were missing until completing a headcount around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday. They then did not call APD to report the escape until around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
"Aurora Police Department was never asked to conduct an active search at the time of the escape, nor were we provided with any of the necessary details to do so," said Chamberlain. "If they would have called and said, 'Hey, these two escapees are out, and we see them running across the field, and we need you here now,' we would have been there. But that is not what unfolded. This information came four and a half to five hours late."
APD and ICE have a memorandum of understanding (MOU), or an agreement on how to handle escapes like this. Chamberlain says their MOU dates back to 2007.
"A hot escape is anything less than 15 minutes," he explained. "That's where Aurora’s mission and focus would be to respond and set up a perimeter on pre-planned streets."
Instead, the late report qualifies as a "cold escape."
"[In that case] there is no obligation," said Chamberlain. "Even ICE stated, there was no potential or no request for us to be involved in that process. Had we been provided more specific, more detailed, more urgent information — as opposed to four and a half to five hours old — the circumstances and the outcome might have been very, different."
Yet Chamberlain said his message is to reassure the public that the department is there to serve them, and is not about "finger-pointing" at ICE. He also denied the narrative that APD refuses to work with ICE over political differences regarding immigration enforcement.
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Chamberlain pointed out that the department cooperates with ICE and he supports actions that "hold individuals that victimize or mistreat or criminalize other individuals accountable." He added, however, that APD "cannot arrest or detain someone solely for civil immigration violations" due to Colorado law.
"Law enforcement, myself, I am completely apolitical," he said. "We are going to support ICE, and I will continue to support ICE. This is about, how can we make things better?"
Chamberlain said Vido-Romero and Gonzalez-Gonzalez were in the ICE facility for civil immigration issues. ICE said both were taken into custody after they were issued immigration detainers while facing local charges in Castle Rock and Brighton, respectively.
As of Thursday evening, Chamberlain said federal warrants for the arrests of Vido-Romero and Gonzalez-Gonzalez have been signed but not yet entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) system.
We reached out to ICE for a response to APD's press conference, but have not yet heard back.
- Denver7 sat down with retired Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock to discuss how local law enforcement works with immigration enforcement agents in the state of Colorado. Watch the conversation with Denver7 anchor Jessica Porter in the video below.
What's the role of local law enforcement when it comes to assisting ICE in Colorado
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