BOULDER, Colo.—Boulder County Deputy John Seifert never saw the face of the man who fired 27 shots at him.
What he saw was the barrel of a gun pointed at him and the hand that held it out of the driver’s side window of a gray Infiniti begin to squeeze off rounds.
He heard the impact of the bullets that left his Boulder County Sheriff’s Office SUV riddled with holes.
He felt a shower of glass when the murder suspect’s bullet shattered a spotlight on the SUV just inches from his head on the morning of Dec. 30 on the side of the Peak to Peak Highway.
Seifert and Derik Bonestroo exchanged 49 rounds in a matter of seconds. When the gunfire quieted, Bonestroo was dead and Seifert felt the pain from the spotlight’s shattered glass in his eyes.
According to sheriff’s reports and an extensive investigation into the events of Dec. 30, Bonestroo shot and killed Brian Mahon, the general manager of the Eldora Mountain Resort, as part of a plan to kill non-Christians at the resort where he had worked for little more than a month. Bonestroo walked into a morning employee meeting, fired a round into the ceiling, and told the 18 to 20 workers that he would kill anyone who was not of his religion. Mahon walked into the meeting, and when he answered “Catholic” after Bonestroo asked him his religion, Bonestroo shot him.
After Bonestroo fled, calls began flooding in to emergency dispatchers.
Seifert, who was in Nederland, headed to his SUV after first hearing about a man with a gun in Nederland. As he reached his vehicle, he heard that a man—he didn’t know it was Mahon, a friend of his—had been shot in the head, and the deputy readied his AR-15 rifle. As he started toward Eldora, dispatchers radioed that the suspected gunman had fled the resort in a gray Infiniti.
The Infiniti sped past him as he headed for the resort and a man following in a truck flashed his lights at the deputy, who turned around and began pursuing the car.
“I expected I was going to be in a high-speed pursuit,” Seifert said recently.
Bonestroo’s car slowed briefly behind another car on the highway. The first car pulled over and Bonestroo stopped behind it. Seifert stopped behind Bonestroo, grabbed his rifle, got out of the SUV, and started to call out commands to the gunman.
The Infiniti’s driver’s side window was rolled down and Seifert watched as the driver stuck out his right hand and fired.
“At that point, the training takes over,” he said.
His rifle briefly jammed and he had to take cover to fix it and return fire. As he returned fire, he remained aware that a car was stopped in front of Bonestroo, a truck was stopped behind him, and traffic had not been stopped on the road.
“I was very aware of people behind me,” he said. “I knew there were civilians behind me.”
For the duration of the gun battle, which lasted only seconds, the four-year veteran of the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office was alone in the fight. At one point, he moved from behind the SUV’s door to behind the SUV.
Sheriff Joe Pelle said the move provided Seifert better protection and forced Bonestroo’s gunfire away from the car behind the sheriff’s SUV.
When the gunfire stopped, Seifert noticed the glass shards in his eyes. A Nederland police officer who arrived after the gun battle held a gun on Bonestroo because they did not know if he was still alive, perhaps planning another attack. Two other deputies checked on Bonestroo’s car, guns drawn, and found him dead inside.
“I was glad the gun battle was over at that point,” Seifert said.
The Boulder County Coroner later determined that Seifert hit Bonestroo at least seven times, although his cause of death was a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
An ambulance took Seifert to Boulder Community Hospital, though paramedics treated his cuts at the scene, and Seifert wanted his family notified that he was OK.
“At that point, I just knew it was going to be a very long day,” he said, adding that support of co-workers and the sheriff has helped tremendously in the aftermath of the shootout.
A Boulder County multi-agency investigative team and the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office concluded he did nothing wrong that day.
He said he doesn’t dwell on the brush with death.
“I just don’t go there,” he said.
Pelle does.
“I am in a different place than John,” he said. “I think we worry about each other more than we do ourselves.”
The sheriff said he tries not to dwell on the extraordinarily violent morning.
“You can’t get too tied up into that,” he said. “This is a fickle deal, this whole life thing. We are all mortal.”
Pelle is relieved that his deputy was well-trained and had the equipment to face down the gunman, who had three guns, several knives and an ax.
“Thankfully, John had a weapon with a high-capacity magazine and enough ammunition to stay in the fight,” he said.
Seifert has drawn his gun before, but had never before fired at a suspect.
He has been in law enforcement for just over six years and was a Nederland officer for about two years before he joined the sheriff’s office. Before becoming a cop, he owned retail stores and doesn’t regret the career change. He is a member of the Boulder County SWAT Team and serves as a firearms instructor.
Seifert was on administrative leave during the shooting investigation and took some time off after that.
He said he believes any of his co-workers would have done the same thing that day. Seifert shies a bit from the term “hero cop,” which has been bandied around in public since the shooting.
“I think that is a pretty heavy mantle to wear, and I see myself as the same person I was before,” he said. “I feel humbled by being given that title.”
Pelle planned to award Seifert with the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office Medal of Valor in a small, informal ceremony upon his return to work.
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