AURORA | A group of community activists dominated Monday’s City Council meeting for nearly five hours, mostly demanding the firing of the city’s police chief — and then continued in the city hall lobby until almost 3 a.m. Tuesday.

At the end of the nine-hours of passionate speeches, vulgar rants, disruption and clever entendres, it appeared that three in the original crowd of about two-dozen protesters linked to the threatened “sit it” refused to leave  the building and faced expulsion and court summons.

City and police officials were not immediately available early Tuesday for comment.

The group was led by, The Epitome of Black Excellence, a community organization that includes many family members of Black men who were killed by Aurora police. Group leaders announced plans for what they said would be a sit-in after repeated attempts to engage with city officials on the topic. 

The group demanded a meeting with City Manager Jason Batchelor, Mayor Pro Tem Alison Coombs and Councilmember Rob Andrews, who leads the public safety committee, to discuss their demands for the termination of Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain.

The group’s complaints against Chamberlain include the officer-involved shootings under his watch, as well as concerns with transparency, accountability and “rhetoric they believe has contributed to fear and distrust among immigrant communities and communities of culture.”

Aurora has been under a state mandated consent decree since 2021, which oversees policy and training changes in the public safety departments, including police and fire, to address a history of racial bias and excessive force.

The city is nearing the end of its consent decree monitoring period and a report from earlier this year shows the departments are substantially compliant with most of the mandates.

Chamberlain was hired as police chief in 2024. The city manager is responsible for hiring and firing the chief, although the council confirms the hire.

During Chamberlain’s tenure, there have been multiple fatal officer-involved shootings, including the deaths of Rajon Belt-Stubblefield and Rashaud Johnson. The officer who killed Belt-Stubblefield, Matthew Neely, is facing charges of second-degree murder and manslaughter after being indicted by a grand jury.

There has been one officer-involved shooting so far this year, where an officer shot and killed a man who was attacking him with a knife during a mental health crisis. 

“We did not begin with a sit-in,” MiDian Shofner, CEO Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership, said last week. “We began with conversation. We began with public comment. We began with invitations to work together. We began by asking our elected and appointed leaders to hear what families and community members were telling them. When every conventional avenue of civic engagement leaves the community standing in the same place, the question becomes what the community is expected to do next.” 

The group was reportedly successful in scheduling a meeting.

Coombs and Andrews said they reached out to schedule a meeting with the Epitome of Black Excellence because they “believe that listening to one another is essential to building trust and finding solutions that move our community forward.

A statement from Batchelor also opened the door for conversation.

“I welcome discussions with all community members on city issues and look forward to having a meaningful dialogue,” Batchelor said.

But Monday night, members who said they were part of the group or supporting the cause spent hours either addressing the city council directly and demanding Chamberlain’s dismissal or contriving ways to get to the lectern in front of the city council dais to speak on unrelated issues and make demands about the police chief, police reform or related issues.

Last week, however, Batchelor, in addressing the police reform and firing demands, defended changes in the police department.

Batchelor pointed to improvements in public safety, such as declining crime rates, a positive rating from a community engagement survey, progress on the city’s consent decree and the creation of the Office of Public Safety Accountability,

“I stand behind the ongoing work and continuous improvement at APD,” Batchelor said.

Shofner confirmed to the Sentinel that the Epitome of Black Excellence received an invitation for discussion with Batchelor, but she said that since the effort is a collective one, “arranging a meeting with our team will not suffice.”

Last week, the group said they had planned to have members stay on the council floor until city officials agree to set up a meeting.

But about 10:30 p.m., after hours of lecturing the city council on a wide variety of causes, the meeting ended and the group re-assembled in the lobby.

The lobby even began with the group reading a 29-page statement, and the participants then took turns speaking for more than four hours. During part of the lobby event, Coombs and Andrews stayed.

By about 2:35 a.m. the group appeared to be finished with some members saying they would remain and refuse to leave.

At about 6 a.m. Tuesday, it was unclear who it was that stayed and how the city and police handled the refusals.

This story is developing and will be updated.

Read more What to Stream: Katseye, ‘VisionQuest,’ ‘Tenzing’ and a new ‘Castlevania’ game

Read more Sky Vista middle schooler Angelique Tolbert leads the state as Colorado Governor for a day

Read more Boys Tennis: 2026 Class 5A individual state tournament brackets, pairings