Evans police have identified the man shot and killed when he pointed a gun at a group of officers during a standoff early Sunday morning.
The dead man is Kenneth B. Yeager, 60, of Grover, said Det. Rita Wolf.
Yeager was thrown out of an all-night restaraunt shortly before the encounter with police after launching a profane tirade at employees.
“He was irritated at the (waiter) or his service,” Wolf said.
The incident at the Double Clutch Cafe in Evans, south of Greeley, began about 1 a.m., when the man started swearing at a dishwasher who brought him a cup of coffee, said Christy Lucas, a waitress at the truck-stop diner.
Lucas wasn’t on duty at the time and heard the story from other employees when she arrived during the subsequent standoff.
A waiter told Yeager to leave, but he refused. Police came to the cafe and escorted the man off the property, Wolf said.
He drove his blue Ford Bronco to a parking lot across the street, Wolf said. The waiter who told him to leave stepped outside to smoke shortly before 4 a.m.
The man opened fire, and the waiter went back into the cafe and called police.
Police don’t know whether the man was shooting at the waiter but later found a bullet lodged in the diner’s wall, Wolf said.
“There is a hole in the building, but it is unconfirmed if it came from the suspect or a SWAT team member,” she said.
Police set up a perimeter around the Bronco. They could see the man sitting in the vehicle, and it was clear he had a gun.
They called in a regional SWAT team and began negotiating for his surrender.
“When I got here at 10 to 6, there was a sniper on the roof,” Lucas said.
Shots rang out shortly after she arrived. Lucas said police told the people inside the cafe to stay away from the windows.
“Ten minutes later, he was dead,” she said.
Police are still investigating whether the suspect fired on the cafe, Wolf said.
“During negotiations, the suspect leveled a firearm out the window of his vehicle in the direction of officers,” Wolf said.
Police then opened fire on the Bronco.
“That’s when we heard more gunshots and flash-bangs and smoke grenades going off,” Lucas said.
Tom McGhee: 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com
