Even before he spotted Brian Allen Washington’s gun, Aurora police Officer Scott Osgood knew he was looking at a killer, according to testimony Wednesday.
Osgood told Denver District Judge Larry Naves that when he saw Washington heading toward a car in which Aurora Detective Mike Thomas lay fatally shot, “I stepped towards him. When he got close, he asked if he (Thomas) was all right.
“That’s when he said, ‘I shot him.’ I said, ‘You shot him?’ And he said, ‘I shot him.”‘
Osgood was testifying in a pretrial hearing in a separate case against Washington, 28. Washington is accused in the attempted killing of Vernice Griffin in Denver on Sept. 18, two days before Thom as was killed in Aurora.
He also has been charged in Adams County in Thomas’ slaying. Washington has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity in both cases.
In the Thomas shooting, Osgood said that when he arrived at the scene at East Montview Boulevard and Peoria Street, he assumed that Thomas, who was slumped back against the driver’s seat, had suffered a heart attack or a seizure.
Dispatchers had told Osgood that they had received 911 calls saying there had been a shooting at the intersection, but he didn’t know at first that the victim was a fellow officer.
When Osgood saw Washington, “there was no doubt in my mind he was the shooter,” he said. He said it was the way Washington “looked, the way he walked and the way he acted.”
“His fingers were curled like he was holding something,” Osgood recalled.
An instant later, Osgood spotted a gun in Washington’s hand.
On Wednesday, Washington’s lawyer, Janene McCabe, fought to keep Osgood from testifying during the Denver trial in the attempt on Griffin’s life, which is scheduled to begin in three weeks.
But Naves ruled that the jury can hear Osgood’s testimony. The judge said Osgood did nothing improper and that Washington volunteered that he shot Thomas.
Griffin, a terminal-cancer patient, was sitting in her car at the intersection of East 33rd Avenue and Pontiac Street on Sept. 18 when someone opened fire on her.
Naves also said he would allow the jury in the Griffin case to hear phone conversations between Washington and his mother recorded by Adams County authorities at the county jail. The judge said inmates are warned that their conversations are monitored and recorded.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
