Details Emerge on Aurora Councilman’s DUI Traffic Stop

According to an Aurora Police Department report, newly elected Aurora Councilman Rob Andrews blew three times the legal limit and handed over his City Council ID card when he was stopped for a DUI on Saturday, January 17.

In APD officer James Shupe’s report, Andrews was reportedly driving in two lanes and swerving when he was pulled over at around 9:30 p.m. near South Chambers Road and East Florida Avenue. After being pulled over in a red Ford F-250, the officer asked Andrews for his driver’s license but reported that he “handed me his City of Aurora City Council Member ID card” instead.

“I handed the ID card back and asked for his driver’s license,” Shupe wrote. “Mr. Andrews handed over his license but stated that he did not have access to his insurance information due to a broken phone.”

According to the APD report, Andrews told officers that he only had two drinks of gin earlier in the day, but he blew a .252 breath alcohol content, more than three times the Colorado limit of .08, after submitting to a breathalyzer test. He was arrested, held in the Aurora Municipal Jail and given a March 9 court date.

Andrews issued a statement on Sunday, January 18, less than a day after his arrest, admitting that, “I was not fit to drive.” He is notably the chairman of the council’s Public Safety, Courts and Civil Service committee, taking over for former councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky.

“I take full responsibility for my decision. I am deeply sorry — to my family, to the people I serve, and to everyone who expects better from me,” the councilman wrote. “I am grateful no one was hurt. That does not lessen the seriousness of what happened. …I am sorry. I will do better, and I will prove it through my actions.”

The next time Andrews is scheduled to appear in public is on Monday, January 26, for the next city council meeting.

Andrews has never been outspoken on Aurora’s public safety issues or polices, but he campaigned on the promise of strengthening APD’s relationship with the community, implementing trauma-informed training and expanding restorative justice programs like teen and diversion courts. His DUI arrest comes barely a month after he was sworn in as one of the two at-large council members representing all of Aurora.

Andrews was the top vote-getter in the local elections in November that saw Aurora’s conservative council majority replaced with a group of progressive rookies, including Andrews, Alli Jackson, Amy Wiles and Gianina Horton; nearly 32,700 Aurora residents voted for Andrews.

Arrest Details

According to the police report, Andrews was “driving in both lanes” and turned into the wrong lane while making a left, nearly hit a curb and then swung too wide during a U-Turn.

When officers stopped him, the councilman allegedly told them that he was “trying to locate his son’s car, which needed a jump start” and that he was coming from an event at the Stanley Marketplace, even though it’s located about eight miles from where he was pulled over in central Aurora.

Officer Shupe wrote that he smelled alcohol during the stop and Andrews’s eyes were “pinkish and watery.” Andrews reportedly told the officer that he has “sciatica and numbness in his feet,” so he couldn’t do a walk-and-turn and one-leg stand for the field sobriety test.

However, the officer’s report said that “Mr. Andrews displayed six of the possible six clues” that he was drunk.

In 2023, Andrews ran for Aurora mayor but dropped out, saying he didn’t want to split votes with progressive candidate Juan Marcano, who lost.

Andrews has been quiet on the Aurora dais so far, but ran in 2023 and 2025 on a moderate left campaign that emphasized affordable housing, supporting local businesses and getting community members to work together. He’s from Colorado Springs, and played quarterback for the Calgary Stampeders, a Canadian pro football team, until a career-ending injury in 2008. He moved to Aurora about a decade ago, and has mostly been working in the nonprofit space.

According to the APD report, Andrews said that the truck he was driving “belonged to a nonprofit,” but doesn’t specify which one.

Andrews is currently the CEO of the One Voice Coalition, a nonprofit without a website and whose principal business address is a residential home. According to Colorado state records, the One Voice Coalition is the new name for the Aurora Economic Opportunity Coalition (AEOC), the group that led Aurora’s response to the migrant crisis in 2023 and 2024. Mateos Alvarez, the former executive director of AEOC, says the nonprofit dissolved after it was given over to Andrews and Ruben Medina, another progressive councilman.