Brian HoweyIn its attempts to hire more police officers, Aurora is settling for candidates who scored poorly on their entrance exams.
The Sentinel’s analysis of the police applicant review process found that, since 2019, the Aurora Civil Service Commission voted to hire at least three Aurora Police Department officers who earned Ds on their overall entrance exam scores and another 17 officers who scored either a D or a C.
The commission has also considered at least 14 prospective officers who scored as low as 57.5 percent on their entrance exams — the academic equivalent of an F — eligible to advance through the application process, city records show. Though none of those candidates were ultimately hired, the commission’s vetting practices have alarmed some experts.
“That’s really scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said Wayne Cascio, an industrial psychologist and economist at the University of Colorado Denver, who pioneered the test-scoring system used by the department today. “They’re barely qualified to be able to get approved…You’re really handcuffing the department in so many ways.”
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