Officer asking Commission to overturn firing

AURORA | An Aurora police officer fired in January after being arrested twice on DUI charges is trying to get his job back this week. 

Former Officer Marc Sears is pleading his case to the Aurora Civil Service Commission in a trial that started today and is scheduled to end Friday. 

A six-year veteran previously assigned to the police academy, was fired Jan. 5. 

He was previously suspended for a month following his second arrest, which happened in March 2010 in Parker after police there say he crashed his SUV into a light pole while driving drunk.

That arrest came while Sears had a trial pending on DUI charges stemming from May 2009, when he crashed a motorcycle in Parker.

Sears was eventually convicted of DUI for the first arrest and his lawyer, Chris Charles, said in January that charges in the second case were dropped and Sears charged only with careless driving.

“Essentially, they terminated him for having a careless driving ticket,” Charles said.

Sears appealed his conviction in the first DUI case and is awaiting a judge’s ruling, Charles said.

Last summer, when Sears’ arrest first came to light, Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates said the department was taking the case very seriously but declined to discuss the case further.

He did, however, point to a former Aurora police officer who resigned in 2008 after a second DUI arrest to avoid being fired.

Sears’ Civil Service Commission hearing is the second of its kind this year. 

In January, Officer James Waselkow appealed his firing to the commission, which sided with the officer and overturned his firing. 

Waselkow had been fired for allegedly kicking an arrested woman.