Greeley police were justified last month when they shot and killed a 24-year-old man who told his wife he was going to die like a gangster, the Weld County district attorney said Wednesday.
The shooting of Isaac Aragon – who was on the county’s “Most Wanted” list – was the focus of a three-week investigation. District Attorney Ken Buck released the results of the probe as well as two letters Aragon wrote his mother and wife just before he died after a three-hour standoff in an upstairs apartment.
The four officers, Buck said, were “justified in using deadly force against Mr. Aragon because they reasonably believed that it was necessary to defend themselves and others from Mr. Aragon’s use of deadly physical force.”
Aragon’s family could not be reached for comment. They complained publicly after the shooting that police should have let them talk to Aragon to get him to surrender.
Police Chief Jerry Garner said Wednesday that having a relative talk to a suspect usually further inflames the situation. “It’s a tragedy when anybody gets killed,” Garner said. “But we are happy no other innocent people nor police officers were killed in this incident.”
Aragon was a suspect in the September beating and robbery of a man. When police contacted him on Dec. 5, he fired twice at officers before breaking into the apartment in the 1100 block of 11th Avenue in Greeley.
While in the apartment, Aragon appeared several times at the window with a gun in his hand and told officers that he did not want to go to jail, Buck said. Police negotiators repeatedly told Aragon that the situation could end peacefully if he would drop his gun, which he refused to do, Buck added.
Greeley SWAT officers deployed tear gas into the apartment and positioned themselves on a landing by the apartment stairwell. Aragon emerged with a semiautomatic pistol in his hand, Buck said.
Aragon then began to raise his gun toward the officers, which prompted them to fire and kill him, the report said. While Aragon was in the apartment, he dropped two letters from the apartment window – one for his wife and one for his mother.
Aragon told his wife that he loved her. “You know that I am going out like a Gangster, right,” he said.
He also apologized to his mother that his life turned out badly. “I want to tell you thank you for everything you’ve done for me,” Aragon wrote. “I don’t know why I just couldn’t change. I hate myself for what has become of me.”
