Does Heather Morris, Aurora’s new police chief, have staying power?

Heather Morris pulled into an Aurora parking lot not long before Christmas and eyed the snow-covered pavement with suspicion.

The longtime Texan wasn’t sure how to walk through the snow. She called out to another police officer for advice.

“He’s like, ‘Keep your balance, don’t lean your weight forward, take small steps and stay away from the shiny stuff,’ ” Morris said in an interview Tuesday, a day after she took the helm of the Aurora Police Department as its new interim chief.

Morris, 52, is fifth chief in five years to lead the 630-member Aurora Police Department. She takes charge as the agency navigates through several challenges: the continued fallout from the death of Elijah McClain after his wrongful arrest, a finding by Colorado’s attorney general that the city’s police officers routinely conducted racially biased policing and used excessive force, and a subsequent court-mandated reform effort within the agency.

During her first months on the job, she said, she will focus on working to decrease crime further in Aurora, improving retention on the force, and rebuilding relationships between the police department’s leadership and its uniformed officers. In the long term, Morris would like stay in Colorado, and stay on as chief in Aurora.

She’s also found that she enjoys the snow, she said.

“I think that my work will speak for itself,” Morris said. “And if this community — if our city manager, our council and this department — wanted me to be the permanent chief, I would consider it a privilege to be the chief here.”

Morris took the reins from former chief Art Acevedo, who left after 13 months as interim chief. He later accepted a job in Austin in which he would oversee that city’s police department, but he backed out Tuesday, according to a statement posted by Acevedo on X, formerly known as Twitter.

In the last three years, Morris followed Acevedo from the police department in Houston to Miami, and then from Miami to Aurora, joining the Aurora Police Department in March.

When she was chosen as Acevedo’s replacement last week, city leaders said she represented continuity for the city and a continuation of Acevedo’s work. The former chief said he had hired Morris as his “wing person” to watch his back and share his vision for the police department.

For some, that’s a problem. Marc Sears, president of the Aurora Fraternal Order of Police union, said Morris was not the right chief for Aurora.

“She’s cut from the same cloth as Art Acevedo,” Sears said. “… She just doesn’t have what it takes to be chief in Aurora. I would love for them to find a chief who is a cop’s cop. And I’d like to see someone who comes in who is vested in the Aurora Police Department, wants to be in Colorado, wants to be in Aurora and cares about their cops.”

Morris pushed back on the idea that she and Acevedo were one and the same.

“I certainly don’t consider myself an Art 2.0 or an Art clone, or anything of the sort,” she said. “I have worked with him for a number of years. However, I’m my own person, and I have my own style — and my style is a lot different from his.”

Sears on Monday noted that Morris had already reached out to the unions to try to open better lines of communication. He said that had him feeling “optimistic.”

But he’d still like to see someone else in charge.

“Texas is not what Colorado needs,” he said. “Texas is not what the Aurora Police Department needs.”

More than two decades in Houston

Morris spent 22 years with the Houston Police Department. She rose to the rank of assistant chief, a role she occupied for just over a year before she retired in 2021.

In Houston, she was known as a hard worker who’s smart, said retired Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland, who left the force in 2016. He noted that Morris did not have much experience at the executive level before she retired.

“She left after 22 years, and she only had a year or so as assistant chief,” he said, adding that many Houston police officers stay on the job for closer to 40 years. “Twenty-two years is not a lot of seniority in the Houston Police Department.”

Morris said Tuesday she is “100% ready” to be chief in Aurora. She said she would lead by soliciting input from a wide range of people to determine the best path forward.

“There’s always a piece — some little nugget — that somebody else has that can make a plan better,” she said.

Doug Griffith, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, worked with Morris there for a time. The two of them also taught a class on body-worn cameras to every officer on Houston’s force, he said.

“I can tell you that as a commander with the department, she was well-liked. She never had issues,” he said. “There are certain commanders you are always getting calls on as the union leader, and she was not one of those.”

Griffith added that his “only concern” was the amount of time Morris spent under Acevedo’s command. But he believes she’ll “find her way very quickly” and develop her own distinct leadership style.

“She’s very pragmatic,” he said. “She will sit and listen. She listens very well to the community. She’ll also be honest with them. She’ll say, ‘Yes, we need to fix this. But there are other things that y’all have to understand are the inherent dangers of police work. And officers are going to have to do certain things that you all might not like, but that is the reality of the situation: They’ve got to keep themselves safe.’ ”

Morris said she was willing to go through whatever process Aurora City Council members establish for vetting the city’s next permanent chief, including any outreach to community members.

A contentious stint in Miami

Her tenure was short-lived in another leadership position.

After retiring from the Houston police, Morris followed Acevedo to the Miami Police Department in mid-2021. There, Acevedo briefly served as chief and Morris as deputy chief. Their monthslong tenures in Miami were marked by Acevedo’s political clashes with the city’s leaders — who ultimately fired both Acevedo and Morris.

In October 2021, Manuel Morales, who took over as Miami’s police chief following Acevedo’s ouster, told city commissioners that Morris had shouted expletives at him and other police leaders during a Sept. 29, 2021, meeting after her position was eliminated. He said Acevedo looked on, without intervening.

“We were confronted by Ms. Morris, (who) was visibly upset — very agitated, actually,” Morales said during the commission meeting, according to a video. “It went into a barrage of cursing and screaming, shaking her head and waving her finger. … The language was very colorful … so I request you will allow me to substitute some of the language. … She goes, ‘You guys are M.F., female dog, female body part, M.F. backstabbers.’ ”

Morris said Tuesday that Morales’ version of events was a “mischaracterization,” but she declined to discuss the incident in detail.

As evidence of wider problems in city government in Miami, she pointed to a recent $63 million judgment in a political retaliation lawsuit against a city commissioner and the arrest of another city commissioner on corruption-related charges.