AURORA, Colo. (KDVR) — Three fired Aurora police officers will be appealing their terminations at hearings next month.
According to the City of Aurora, Erica Marrero, Kyle Dittrich, and Jason Rosenblatt are each scheduled for hearings in front of the Aurora Civil Service Commission in December.
Rosenblatt, who is also suing the city as a result of his termination, will argue his case beginning Dec. 9. Marrero and Dittrich will argue their cases starting Dec. 14.
All three have asked for the hearings to be closed to the public, according to the City. There will be no public records available until the commission makes a ruling.
The police chief terminated the trio in July, and a fourth officer, Jaron Jones, resigned after a texting scandal linked to the death of Elijah McClain.
Dittrich, Marrero, and Jones were accused of posing, smiling, and simulating the police technique called the carotid control hold in an October 2019 photo near the Aurora location where Rosenblatt and two other officers struggled with McClain a few months earlier before he died. That altercation with McClain – in which the carotid control hold was administered in an attempt to subdue McClain – is now under local, state, and federal investigation.
The officers who posed in the photograph are accused of texting the photograph to officers who were involved in the altercation, including Rosenblatt, who replied, “Haha.”
A FOX31 investigation found Marrero and Dittrich were also at the scene of the August altercation, offering support to Rosenblatt and Nathan Woodyard, another officer who was involved in the August incident.
Dittrich, Marrero, and Rosenblatt are also named in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by McClain’s family.