News Releases

Aurora Police Chief, Dan Oates

Daniel J. Oates has been the Chief of Police in Aurora, Colorado since November 2005. To give you an idea about the scope of his responsibilities, the Aurora Police Department has 638 sworn officers and 773 total employees and an operating budget of $75 million. It provides comprehensive police services to a diverse city of 308,000 residents and 150 square miles.

Prior to working in Aurora, Chief Oates headed up the Ann Arbor Police Department in Ann Arbor, Michigan and he finished his 21-year New York City Police Department career as a Deputy Chief and the Executive Officer and second-in-command of the Patrol Borough Brooklyn South, where he supervised 3,000 patrol officers and 700 civilians and was responsible for all patrol services for 1.4 million residents in the City’s largest borough.

Recently, we talked to the Chief and asked him how working in Aurora, a community in which he and his staff have access to SungateKids, compares to his work in communities that don’t have a child advocacy organization. He said the other communities in which he worked did not have an organization such as SungateKids. Chief Oates said he feels fortunate having access to SungateKids whose experts specialize in working with these victims. “Sungate’s staff has extraordinary expertise and carefully honed skills they have developed over time that help them to break through with these young victims.

He also explained that much time and training is required in order to help children who are victims of abuse crimes. His detectives have a full range of responsibilities with all members of the community. “It would be extremely difficult and time consuming to train detectives to work with young victims of these crimes. Our detectives have so many other responsibilities that it’s just not feasible.” This is when SungateKids can step in and help law enforcement by having their specially-trained forensic interviewers talk to children without further traumatizing them and get to the truth of their experience. “The responsiveness SungateKids provides to our local law enforcement community is just wonderful.”