Aurora Gardeners Called 911 Again and Again as a Man Smashed Beehives and Tore Up Crops, and Police Took More Than Three Hours to Arrive

Mathew King, a volunteer at the Denver Urban Gardens plot near East 16th Avenue and Yosemite Street in Aurora, called 911 shortly before 1 p.m. on Aug. 8 to report a man wrecking the garden. He called again as the damage spread. Newly released 911 recordings show a dispatcher eventually told him there was no officer available to send, and police did not arrive until about 4 p.m., more than three hours after the first call.

Beehives were smashed, cinder blocks broken and crops ripped out before officers got there, according to Denver7 Investigates, which obtained the calls and published them Oct. 27.

Three hours on the line from the garden

Denver7 first reported the wait in August, citing Aurora police records. The first 911 call came in at 12:57 p.m. and was classified as a Priority 3 “verbal disturbance.” Officers were dispatched at 3:48 p.m. and arrived about 4:00 p.m.

In the dispatch audio, a dispatcher can be heard relaying that multiple callers had reported the man damaging property and throwing rocks. King estimated the damage at roughly $2,500. “He just destroyed it,” he told the station.

The station’s Oct. 27 follow-up laid out the calls in order. In the first, King reported a person being destructive and throwing rocks but said he did not know of anyone in danger, and the dispatcher told him to keep his distance. About 15 minutes later he called back from the scene to report extensive damage, telling the dispatcher the man was doing “thousands of dollars of damage.” The call stayed at Priority 3 the whole afternoon.

In a video from the scene, King can be heard telling the man he was going to jail for what he had done. A 42-year-old man was later arrested on a felony criminal mischief allegation tied to the garden, Denver7 reported. Five days earlier, the same man had been arrested in Douglas County in a separate case involving criminal mischief, theft and tampering allegations, according to the station. In October he was being held in the Adams County Jail and is due in court for a review hearing.

Why the call waited

The city told Denver7 the call was classified correctly. Priority 3 covers low-threat situations that still need police, and the city said it would have been upgraded if callers had reported a direct threat to a person.

The department’s own rules explain what that label means on the street. Aurora police Directive 8.4, “Call Priority Designations,” last revised Feb. 25, describes Priority 3 calls as in-progress or recent incidents “with a low risk to public safety or injury.” They get a routine response, and the directive says they may be held if no cars are available in the district. Priority 1 calls are “critical in-progress calls where immediate police intervention is required,” and Priority 2 calls cover serious incidents involving injuries, weapons or threats to public safety.

The Aurora Police Department said the delay came from a heavy load of higher-priority calls. Between 1 and 4 p.m. that Saturday, the department handled 11 Priority 1 calls and 15 Priority 2 calls, and officers averaged 87 minutes and 44 seconds on scene at calls that day. The department told the station it does not track response times for Priority 3 calls.

That gap is not new. A 2023 calls-for-service study published by the city, covering January 2021 through March 2023, said reviewers “could not perform any work on the priority response times as data was unavailable.”

A garden that runs on volunteers

The plot is one of roughly 200 community gardens and food forests that Denver Urban Gardens supports across seven metro Denver counties. The nonprofit has worked since 1985 to give neighbors land, skills and supplies to grow food.

At this garden, much of the upkeep falls to people like King. He told Denver7 in August that he buys replacement locks himself when they get broken, because the organization does not have the money for every repair.

Edna Sanchez, a garden member, told the station she comes every day to water her plants. She described the garden as something worth keeping safe for the children and grandchildren of the families who use it.

About two months after the damage, much of it had been repaired, according to the October report. The garden’s water tank, which was knocked out of place, was put back, and Denver Urban Gardens found money for some replacement equipment.

What Aurora’s council is weighing next

Mayor Pro Tem Alison Coombs told Denver7 in August she was “very concerned that active, in-progress threats and property destruction are considered a low acuity call.” She called for mental health responders seven days a week and questioned whether the problem was staffing or how officers are deployed, noting the force is close to its full authorized strength. Aurora police confirmed to the station that its homeless abatement team does not work weekends.

In the October report, Coombs said the garden case exposed a policy gap the council should examine, including whether crimes in progress belong in Priority 3. The council has given preliminary approval to a fourth Aurora Mobile Response Team in the proposed 2027 budget, at an estimated cost of about $243,000. Coombs said another team could have helped in this case. The police department said it would not have changed the outcome.

Final budget votes are scheduled for Nov. 9 and Nov. 23. Residents who need police for a situation that is not an emergency can reach Aurora 911’s non-emergency dispatch line at 303-627-3100, while 911 remains the number for emergencies.

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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: Ruth Hartnup from Vancouver, Canada – CC BY 2.0/Wikimedia Commons