Denver police shot and killed a man on a Montbello street after an altercation Saturday night as neighbors, including children, looked on.
Police said officers went to the 5500 block of Dillon Street about 6 p.m. after someone called to report a disturbance and that a man had cut himself.
The man was gone when officers arrived, but he came back about half an hour later with a weapon, said Detective Sharon Hahn, a police spokeswoman.
Hahn said she could not say what kind of weapon the man had.
Officers shot the man after “verbal orders and less lethal attempts” to get him to drop the weapon were unsuccessful, Hahn said.
The man, who has not been identified, was taken to Medical Center of Aurora South, where he was pronounced dead.
Several neighbors said they heard seven or eight shots, sounds they first thought were firecrackers.
One woman who lives nearby said she and her granddaughter were coming out their front door as the shooting began.
“We saw it; all kinds of people saw it,” said the woman, who would not give her name because, she said, “I have to live here.”
The woman said she saw two officers fire at the man and said she heard about eight shots.
“You see it on TV, but you never think you’ll see it in real life,” she said.
Several neighbors said the shooting was witnessed by quite a few children, some possibly related to the man who was killed.
Some said they believe the family who lives at the home was celebrating a child’s first Communion or some other milestone when the disturbance began.
A neighbor who gave her name only as Candy said her daughter attends school with a little girl who lives in the house where the shooting occurred.
“They were having a Holy Communion party,” Candy said.
Two hours after the shooting, a little girl in a formal white dress, her long, dark hair done up as if for a party, stood alongside a police patrol car parked just outside the police tape that ringed the block where the shooting took place.
After talking to officers for a few minutes, the girl climbed into the back seat of the patrol car.
In the hours after the shooting, half a dozen children could be seen being escorted from the block by police, some in patrol cars, some being carried.
Hahn said police were still investigating who lives in the house and what their relationship was to the dead man.
After 9 p.m., an entire block of Dillon Street remained closed off by police tape. And dozens of neighbors remained stationed at each end of the block, watching the unfolding investigation, speculating about what happened and bemoaning what many said is the growing danger in a once-peaceful neighborhood.
“It used to be quiet here, but it’s gotten rough,” said Rita Sykes, who has lived in Montbello with her husband, Keith, and their two sons for 10 years.
Sykes said this latest time, the gunfire interrupted the family’s habitual Saturday night game of Monopoly.
“The police need to step up patrols around here. They need to be here every day,” Sykes said.
Karen Auge: 303-954-1733 or kauge@denverpost.com
