The man shot and killed by Denver police Saturday evening pointed a fake gun at officers, Denver Police Chief Gerry Whitman said Sunday.
But Whitman said the gun looked real enough for the three officers who fired to feel legitimately threatened.
“It’s definitely not a toy,” Whitman said of the black plastic gun made in Taiwan, which he said could have been used to fire darts or pellets. “It’s a replica handgun. I don’t know if the suspect was treating it as a toy, but he pointed it at uniformed officers. Obviously, they took that very seriously.”
The gun looks so real, Whitman said, that department firearms experts didn’t realize it was a fake until they picked it up and started manipulating it, well after the shooting.
Saturday’s shooting was the second fatal officer-involved shooting in the metro area in 24 hours. Friday night, a Westminster officer shot and killed a man who police say lunged at the officer with a knife.
In the Saturday shooting, Whitman said, officers on cruising detail shortly before 5 p.m. on Federal Boulevard spotted a Jeep Cherokee that had been reported stolen in Aurora. They followed it into the Sun Valley public housing complex, where the car was parked and a man got out of the back seat.
Three officers – Sgt. Rick Stern and officers James Medina and Andrew Richmond – confronted the man near West 10th Avenue and Clay Way and ordered him to get down on the ground. Instead, Whitman said, the man pulled the fake gun and pointed it at Stern. All three officers fired.
Officials haven’t released the man’s identity pending the coroner’s formal identification.
Police arrested two other people in the Jeep, 21-year-old Dale Edward Sirratt and 32- year-old Michael Anthony Romero, on suspicion of car theft. Both have lengthy arrest records, including for vehicle theft, according to Denver police and Colorado Bureau of Investigation records.
Denver’s police monitor, Rich ard Rosenthal, said Sunday he went to the shooting scene Saturday night. He said his office will continue to monitor the investigation and will wait for the district attorney’s standard decision on whether to file criminal charges against the officers before proceeding with an internal review.
“Until the investigation is completed … it is inappropriate for me to make any comments,” he said.
Steve Nash, with Denver CopWatch, said the shooting was “discouraging” and criticized police for not announcing sooner that the gun was a fake.
“We’ll be watching this case very closely,” he said. “It’s another test of the monitor and … whether that makes any more information available to the public at the end of the day.”
Whitman said witnesses corroborated the officers’ stories and were “shocked” the man didn’t comply with officers’ orders.
“I think he did not respond to commands because he chose not to,” Whitman said.
On Sunday, residents near the scene either declined to comment or said they did not see what happened.
Whitman called the officers “solid guys.” Stern, who has been with the department since 1987, is about to be called to Iraq again, Whitman said. Medina was the outstanding police recruit in his 1999 class.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona contributed to this report.
Staff writer John Ingold can be reached at 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com.
