Denver’s district attorney has cleared two officers in the Denver Police Department’s first officer-involved shooting in more than a year.
“The officers acted with professional restraint in spite of the obvious danger to them,” the District Attorney Mitch Morrissey announced Friday.
The shooting of David Jerome Maestas, 33, was the culmination of a car chase that followed a home-invasion robbery.
After 8 a.m. Aug. 6, Denver police started receiving 911 calls about a nude, bleeding woman screaming on her front porch in the 2900 block of Lafayette Street.
Officers later learned the woman and a man in the home had been the victims of a brutal home-invasion robbery and that the robber had fired a gun before fleeing in the man’s Jeep.
Both the man and the woman had been beaten and whipped with the pistol, and then tied up with retractable dog leashes in separate rooms. The woman was able to escape.
Denver police soon spotted the stolen Jeep at East 30th Avenue and High Street, and the pursuit began.
About 9 a.m., the Jeep was heading south on Downing Street when officers intentionally hit the Jeep’s back bumper, causing the vehicle to spin out of control and crash into a light pole.
Even after the Jeep hit the pole, Maestas was trying to run over police officers, witnesses said.
Another patrol car arriving on scene hit the Jeep again, and it crashed into a large tree.
As officers approached the Jeep, they saw Maestas point a gun at one of the officers, who dropped to the ground thinking the suspect was shooting.
Two of the four officers on the scene then shot and killed Maestas.
The district attorney stated it would have been legally permissible for the officers to have fired at Maestas sooner.
“They only used deadly force when it was necessary ‘to defend’ against the imminent deadly threat to their fellow officer,” the document from the DA’s office states.
The document also commended the Denver Police Department for its cooperation with investigations in all officer-involved shootings.
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
