Aurora police chief Dan Oates was once a high ranking officer with the NYPD, according to a published report.

A New Jersey native, Oates started out as a street cop in 1980, the New York Post reported. He graduated from Bucknell University and joined the NYPD after a stint as a reporter for a The Press newspaper in Atlantic City.

Oates graduated from New York Law School while working as a beat cop, the Post said, and caught the eye of current Police Commissioner Ray Kelly during his first term under Mayor David Dinkins.

By the time Oates retired from the NYPD in 2001, he was the executive-deputy chief in the Brooklyn South command, the Post said.

Now, as police chief of the small Denver suburb he is tasked with heading up the investigation of one of the worst mass shootings the country has ever seen.

(Source: NBC New York)