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Police draw guns on Black woman and children in mistaken stolen car stop

<span>Photograph: Philip B Poston/AP</span>
Photograph: Philip B Poston/AP

Police in the Colorado city of Aurora prompted outrage after drawing their guns on a Black woman and four Black children and handling them aggressively after mistakenly thinking their car had been stolen.

A video posted on Facebook went viral, showing Brittney Gilliam with her two daughters, aged six and 12, and their cousins, aged 14 and 17, lying down on the concrete of a parking lot after police handcuffed them.

In the video the children can be heard crying while onlookers ask the police why they had drawn their weapons on the family. It was later established that car was not stolen, and the department apologized.

“I have called [Gilliam’s] family to apologize and to offer any help we can provide, especially for the children who may have been traumatized by yesterday’s events,” Aurora’s new chief of police, Vanessa Wilson, said in a statement. “I have reached out to our victim advocates so we can offer age-appropriate therapy that the city will cover.”

Wilson has only been in her position on a permanent basis since Monday and faces the task of rebuilding trust between police and residents of Aurora, a diverse city east of Denver, after recent scandals.

In August last year, Elijah McClain, a 23-year-old Black man, was stopped by Aurora police as he walked from a shop, put in a chokehold and then given ketamine by paramedics. He suffered cardiac arrest and later died. The Colorado governor, Jared Polis, has appointed the state attorney general, Phil Weiser, as a special prosecutor to investigate McClain’s death.

McClain’s death only later came to widespread national attention when highlighted by anti-racism protesters who have taken to the streets in US cities since George Floyd, another Black man, was killed after a white police officer kneeled on his neck in Minneapolis in May.

The Black Lives Matter movement has gained renewed popular traction in the US and internationally in the wake of a spate of police killings of Black people, leading to calls that police forces be fundamentally reformed and more funding diverted to social, health and educational services.

In an interview with CNN, Gilliam said she was taking the four girls to get their nails done. She said she had been parked in the car when Aurora police pulled up with guns drawn and demanded they put their hands out of the window and to get out of the car. Gilliam’s car had been stolen earlier this year but returned to her the next day.

In a statement Aurora police said they were reacting to a report that another vehicle with the same plate information, but from a different state, had been reported as stolen.

“The confusion may have been due, in part, to the fact that the stopped car was reported stolen earlier in the year,” the statement said. “After realizing the mistake, officers immediately unhandcuffed everyone involved, explained what happened and apologized.”

Wilson said she has directed the police force to look into new practices and training to avoid a repeat of the incident. Currently, when stopping a stolen car officers are trained to draw weapons and instruct occupants to lie down on the ground.

Jennifer Wurtz, who shot the video of Gilliam and the children, told the officers on camera that the children were scared and she asked to speak to them but was told to move back because she was interfering in their investigation.

Gilliam questioned whether the family would have been treated differently if they were not Black, ABC News reported.

“You did not protect and serve,” Gilliam said of the department.