Undercover officers investigating a weekend drug-related shooting in Grand Junction shot and killed a man they say brandished a gun Wednesday morning.
Police spokeswoman Linda Bowman said the man had been under surveillance and pulled a gun as he exited a bowling alley and spotted the officers. It wasn’t clear if the man shot at police or how many officers fired, she said.
No names were released Wednesday.
The officers involved – from the Western Colorado Joint Drug Task Force – were being interviewed by a multi-jurisdiction critical-incident team, she said.
The shooting occurred about 10:50 a.m., and the victim was pronounced dead at a local hospital at 11:30 a.m., Bowman said.
The undercover officers were investigating a shooting Saturday that left Rebecca Carroll, 25, in critical condition with a gunshot wound to the stomach, Bowman said. She was dropped off at a local hospital by a man who didn’t wait to talk with police.
Because Carroll has a criminal record and has associates in the local “methamphetamine subculture,” the drug task force was enlisted by Grand Junction police to help investigate the shooting.
Pursuing several leads, teams of officers sought out and followed different people.
One of the teams followed Wednesday’s shooting victim to Orchard Mesa Lanes, 295 27 Road, where he was shot when he came out of the business. A woman waiting for him in a car in the parking lot was taken into custody for questioning, Bowman said.
Karl Antunes, the proprietor of Karl’s Automotive next to the bowling alley, heard “pop, pop, pop,” he said.
He turned to a customer and said: “That sounds like gunshots. She said, ‘Nah.”‘ When he investigated, Antunes saw a young man lying in the parking lot with two men standing over him with guns drawn. A third man was walking to the scene, he said.
“The kid was just lying there,” he said. “I could see he was bleeding from the neck area. He wasn’t moving.”
