Greeley police shot and killed an armed man inside his hotel room over the weekend after responding to a call advising of a possible suicide attempt.
Two officers responded to the Best Western Regency Hotel, 701 Eighth St., just before 5 p.m. Saturday after someone from outside the hotel called with “apprehension a guest was going to kill himself,” Stan Snow, the hotel’s general manager, said police told him.
The officers knocked on the guest’s door and were met by a man holding a large knife, said Sgt. Joe Tymkowych, Greeley police spokesman.
The man refused to talk to police and walked back into the room, he said.
The man then turned and approached the officers in a threatening manner, Tymkowych said.
After asking the man to stop and put down the knife, at least one officer fired shots, fatally wounding the man, he said.
The exchange lasted only a couple of minutes, and police never entered the room, Tymkowych said.
Snow said the guest was in his mid-30s and had stayed at the hotel about eight different times in the past year.
Hotel employees knew the man on a first-name basis and talked to him regularly, he said.
Officials did not release the man’s name pending notification of his family.
Checking in Saturday, the man was “a little quieter than usual,” Snow said. “But he seemed excited to be staying at the hotel.”
The hotel was almost completely booked by about 400 young girls and their families in town for a volleyball tournament, he said.
But at the time of the incident, the hotel was nearly empty, as most guests were at the tournament.
Guests staying in the hallway near the room were relocated after the shooting, and only a few guests left the hotel, he said.
Business returned to normal Sunday, Snow said, but the incident has left employees stunned.
“This guy wasn’t a stranger in the night,” he said. “It’s really sad for us.”
Staff writer Sean McDonald can be reached at 303-954-1661 or smcdonald@denverpost.com.
