A Westminster police officer who shot and killed a man July 22 did so in self-defense after the man armed with two knives and with amphetamine in his system came out of a closet and refused to drop the weapons, the Adams County district attorney’s office said Friday.
Cynthia Kowert, the assistant DA for the 17th Judicial District, said Westminster Officer Michael Boespflug acted appropriately when he and Officer Joe McGuire were searching a room in the 7100 block of Hooker Street.
Kowert said that as they searched the room, Boespflug saw “two sneakers coming out of the closet” and then saw a man with both hands in the air, fists clenched, holding a knife in each hand.
Both knives were 4 to 6 inches long.
Boespflug “repeatedly ordered” the man, identified as Albert Leroy Lucero, 28, to put the knives down but was forced to fire when Lucero ignored the order, Kowert said.
Kowert said that under Colorado law, officers may use deadly physical force when they reasonably believe they may be killed if they don’t respond to the threat.
Here, Kowert said, Boespflug and McGuire were in a very small bedroom and were confronted by a man with two knives in his hands who was only a few feet from Boespflug.
The shooting occurred amid a stolen-car investigation that began almost four hours earlier near the Hooker Street address in Westminster.
A stolen Yukon Denali was spotted by Westminster police shortly after 1 a.m. on July 22. The vehicle rammed several police cars and fled to Arvada, where it crashed and the driver escaped. About 5 a.m., Boespflug and McGuire went to the residence where the stolen vehicle was originally spotted.
There, according to the Adams County DA’s office, Boespflug, McGuire and Officer Sarah DeHerrera went inside a residence and talked to two women in a front room. The officers could clearly hear someone in the back bedroom.
McGuire and Boespflug entered the small back bedroom with their weapons drawn and encountered Lucero, Kowert said.
