ENGLEWOOD — Investigators were trying to pull together the details of a police shooting Wednesday that sent a deputy and a wounded suspect to the hospital and closed a major metro intersection for more than three hours.
Plainclothes officers assigned to the Jefferson County Regional Auto Theft Task Force tracking a suspected stolen pickup found the vehicle at the intersection of South Santa Fe Drive and West Dartmouth Avenue shortly after 1 p.m.
As a Jefferson County deputy assigned to the task force approached the pickup, the female driver attempted to speed away, dragging the officer. As he was dragged, the deputy fired at least one shot that hit the driver, said Jefferson County sheriff’s spokesman Jim Shires.
The driver was taken to Denver Health Medical Center for surgery. Her passenger, another woman, was taken into custody. Their names were not released, and hospital officials would not confirm the condition of the suspect.
At the scene, blood-soaked white padding on a makeshift wooden bench seat was visible through the cab door, still flung open as investigators worked. The gold Ford F-250 pickup was pointed north and tilted up the stone-terraced embankment of the ramp to Santa Fe Drive.
Motorist John Conway, 40, was heading south on Santa Fe when he saw the action at about 1:15 p.m.
“I see this guy running down Santa Fe with a gun, pointing it at a truck,” he said. “He was in plainclothes.”
Conway called 911 and told the dispatcher, “There’s a man with a gun on Santa Fe,” he said.
The man “had a hat on, clean-cut guy, in jeans. White guy. Short hair. He was running. He ran past two cars. There were so many people around.”
Conway heard a pop and at first thought it might have been a vehicle backfire, he said.
“I could have got caught in the crossfire,” he said. “For what? An auto theft? I mean, this intersection was full of people!”
The incident began Wednesday morning, when the truck was reported stolen. The case was referred to the task force, and investigators used the truck’s GPS tracking device to find it, Shires said.
Driving an unmarked white Nissan Pathfinder, the deputy and his partner, a Lakewood police sergeant, tailed the truck to the intersection of Dartmouth and Santa Fe.
As the deputy approached the Ford on foot, it sped away, “dragging my deputy,” Shires said.
Jefferson County Division Chief Jeff Shrader said the lawman was “dragged a good distance.”
Shires said the deputy, 52, was in serious condition at Swedish Medical Center. His injuries were not life-threatening, Englewood police said.
Shires would not name the deputy, but said he is a 32-year veteran who joined Jefferson County’s investigations unit in 1998. He was assigned to the auto-theft task force in July.
As a dozen police officers walked shoulder-to-shoulder north on Santa Fe on Wednesday afternoon, combing the intersection for evidence, residents of a nearby neighborhood gathered on a hillside at Dartmouth and South Galapago Street to watch.
Tarik Smallwood, 13, carried a school backpack and asked reporters what had happened to prompt the busy crime scene.
“Man, it’s crazy,” he said. “Nothing ever happens around here.”
Staff photographer Steve Nehf and staff writers Kieran Nicholson, Kirk Mitchell and Mike McPhee contributed to this report.
