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 today.
The shooting of David Jerome Maestas, 33, was the culmination of a car chase that followed a home-invasion robbery.
The incident began just after 8 a.m. on Saturday Aug. 6, when Denver police started receiving 911 calls about a nude woman screaming on her front porch and bleeding from her face at the home 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 suspect 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.
Around 9 a.m., the Jeep was heading south on Downing Street when officers intentionally hit the Jeep’s back bumper, causing it 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.
“A citizen witness indicated the suspect “hit the gas again … lunged forward … narrowly missing an officer.”
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.
Maestas was wanted for a parole violation, and has previous arrests in Colorado dating to 1996 for trespassing, assault, drugs and burglary.
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 he DA’s office states.
The document also commended the Denver Police department for their cooperation with investigations in all officer-involved shootings.
“For the past 33 years, without exception, every Denver police officer who has fired his or her firearm in an officer-involved shooting has given a full voluntary statement to investigators immediately following the shooting, in spite of the fact they have the right not to do so.”
Yesenia Robles: 303-954-1372 or yrobles@denverpost.com
