DOUGLAS COUNTY — Police were searching for two armed men who fled on foot Saturday following a car chase in which the suspects fired numerous gunshots at two sheriff’s deputies, striking one in the arm, authorities said.
The identities of the two, described as white men in their 20s, were not known. The pair abandoned an older model Honda Accord on foot, and authorities said they believed they escaped the area.
About 2,400 residents in the area near Castle Rock were called Saturday morning and warned to lock their doors and windows, stay in their homes and report any suspicious activity. Several roads were closed while SWAT team members searched for the men.
“We have two suspects on foot who are armed,” said Lt. Alan Stanton, spokesman for the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office. “That poses a high danger to people in that area.”
In the afternoon, deputies reopened Colorado 105 and Wolfensberger Road near Sedalia and allowed people to return to their homes.
Saturday night, Douglas County investigators said the two suspects also were believed to be linked to a June 11 armed robbery at a Circle K store, 23 W. Wolfensberger Road, at about 3:30 a.m.
In that robbery, two white men in their early 20s, dressed in fatigues, held a store clerk at gunpoint with a rifle.
Police have released a surveillance photo of that robbery.
Deputies told 9News that both men in the June 11 incidents were described as having slight builds and wore green bandanas over their faces. One of the men had a British accent, authorities told 9News.
In Saturday’s incident, deputies received a call of suspicious activity in the Silver Heights subdivision near Castle Rock at 3 a.m., Stanton said.
While two deputies responded in a marked and an unmarked car, they received a second call of a burglary in progress, Stanton said. They were told that two suspects got into a car and were driving away from the burglary.
The deputies spotted a beige Honda and tried to pull it over, but the vehicle headed west on Wolfensberger Road.
Those inside then fired gunshots at the two sheriff’s department cars, shattering their own back window and striking both sheriff’s cars, injuring the deputy driving an unmarked car, Stanton said.
The officers did not shoot back, he said.
The marked car had a bullet hole on the windshield and the roof, and the unmarked car had a hole in the roof.
The injured deputy, whose identity has not been released, was taken to a local hospital, where he was treated and released, Stanton said.
The Honda stopped in a ditch just south of the intersection of Colorado 105 and Wolfensberger Road, and the two ran into a nearby forest.
Officials later found two 5-gallon and two 10-gallon gas cans in the trunk of the Honda, which had been stolen.
Emergency calls were sent out in a 3-mile radius from the area to notify residents that the suspects were still at large and believed to be armed.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
