A 44-year-old man climbed a tall pine tree and held a SWAT team at bay for nine hours with a .45-caliber pistol he fired once before surrendering Saturday morning.
Sheriff’s negotiators talked Michael Lee Kutz of Aurora into climbing down from the tree on a steep hillside just west of the gambling town of Central City, authorities said.
“He said he had an issue with law enforcement,” said Cherokee Blake, spokeswoman for the Gilpin County Sheriff’s Department. “He never really moved for nine hours. ”
Kutz surrendered Saturday morning and was being held in the Gilpin County Detention Facility, Blake said.
At 10:15 p.m. Friday, a deputy saw a man sitting in a green Chevrolet 1970s-style pickup on a remote, steep dirt road at Russell Gulch, Blake said.
“We have no clue what he was doing there,” she said.
It was unusual to see someone in the sparsely populated area, so the deputy approached the truck.
“He (Kutz) jumped out of the truck and pointed a gun at the deputy before he could even get to the truck,” Blake said. “Then he jumped over a snowbank and ran into the woods.”
A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office canine officer and SWAT team member tracked him to a large tree about 75 yards into the thick forest.
SWAT team members from Park and Clear Creek counties set up a perimeter around the tree and tried to persuade Kutz to climb down, she said.
The negotiation broke down and it was very quiet for hours, Blake said.
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
