Commerce City police are investigating how an officer was shot after a car chase Monday night.
The officer, a 10-year veteran of the department, was treated for a leg wound at a local hospital and released.
The incident started at about 11:40 p.m. Monday when police were called to the 6500 block of Olive Street on a report that shots were fired.
“Some guy, apparently angry about something, was firing into the air,” said Lt. Chuck Saunier, a police spokesman.
The shooter got into a car, a red Pontiac Grand Am, and fled before police arrived.
An officer, whom police did not name, saw the Pontiac and pursued it, turning on his lights and siren, Saunier said.
As the officer tried to pull the car over, shots were fired from inside the Pontiac at the police cruiser, Saunier said.
A bullet went through the officer’s driver door and struck him in the leg.
The wounded officer continued to pursue the Grand Am, and another officer joined him.
Several shots were exchanged between the officers and three people in the car.
The Grand Am crashed at 56th Avenue and Monaco Street, and three people were taken into custody, Saunier said.
Police identified the shooter as 30-year-old Shane Hotton. The two others in the car were identified as Zach Mathias, 23, and Megan Bailey, 22, Saunier said.
All three people in the car were taken to a local hospital to be treated for injuries they received when the car crashed.
Details on their injuries were not available.
No charges are expected to be filed against Bailey.
According to Colorado Bureau of Investigation reports, Hotton and Mathias have extensive criminal arrest records. In addition, both men have done prison time.
Hotton was arrested in 1997 for possession of methamphetamine and year later was arrested again for trespassing, larceny and forgery — he went to prison for a year for the forgery charge and three years for trespassing, CBI records show. He was a fugitive from community corrections and violated his parole in the years that followed, which landed him in prison again for parole violation.
Then in 2003, he was busted again for possession of dangerous drugs, resisting arrest and possession of drugs with the intent to distribute. He went back to prison in 2004 for drug possession.
Mathias was arrested in 2002 for DUI in Thornton, then again a year later for probation violation, which he followed up with an arrest for vehicle theft in 2004.
He has a series of traffic offenses that include eluding police and reckless endangerment, which landed him in prison for 15 months in 2006. A year later he violated his parole, then was arrested in September of this year for third-degree assault, disorderly conduct and larceny in Northglenn.
Kieran Nicholson: 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com
