GOLDEN — Thirty-five days in a hospital, 10 surgeries and intense pain from the gaping wound in her leg left Lakewood police Agent Kimberly Collins thinking at times that she was going to die.
Nerve damage and post traumatic stress have Agent Jonathan Key feeling that his life will never again be the same.
“I was millimeters and seconds away from dying that night,” Collins testified Thursday at the sentencing of Gordon Lee Moench Jr., who shot her and Key in 2014. “If he had his way, I would be dead right now.”
For the damage he caused, Moench, 56, was sentenced Thursday to 120 years in prison. He was convicted last month of 13 counts in the case, including attempted first-degree murder and first-degree assault with a deadly weapon.
Authorities said Moench summoned officers to his home on July 5, 2014, and was lying in wait for their arrival. He was armed with three guns, including an SKS assault-style rifle and a spare 30-round magazine, investigators said.
Key was shot in his bullet-proof vest and arm through the windshield of his patrol car as he responded to a request for a welfare check on Moench. Collins was hit as she was approaching Moench on foot and as she tried to aid a bleeding Key.
A third police officer, Agent Luke Godfrey, then encountered Moench, who was walking down the middle of the street carrying a .44 Magnum handgun, authorities say. Godfrey and other officers ordered several times for Moench to drop the gun, and when Moench did not comply, Godfrey shot him.
Moench, who was wounded by police in the encounter, later said the shootout amounted to an attempted “suicide by cop” as part of efforts to leave his wife with the payout from a life insurance policy.
When Moench called 911 just before 10 p.m. on the night of the shooting to lure police to his residence, he left authorities with an ominous warning.
There is a “guy out front with a gun ready to kill a bunch of people,” Moench told a dispatcher, according to court papers.
The dispatcher asked who the caller was and Moench replied: “I’m the guy with the gun.”
Moench apologized to Key and Collins on Thursday before his sentence was handed down, saying he was sorry for the pain and suffering he caused them and their families. Both officers have returned to duty.
“I can’t imagine what I did to you,” he said. “I will not live on the outside ever again, and that’s OK. That’s what I deserve.”
Moench’s family members told the court his actions the night of the shooting were totally out of the ordinary. He had only a driving-under-the-influence conviction from the 1990s on his criminal record.
Key said after the sentencing that he was pleased with the penalty but that Moench’s remorse didn’t go far enough. Charles Tingle, senior chief deputy Jefferson County district attorney, said “justice was done.”
District Judge Christopher C. Zenisek called Moench’s behavior the night of the shooting a paradox but recognized the severity of the impact when he leveled the sentence. He repeated Agent Collins’ words: “Millimeters and seconds. Millimeters and seconds.”
“This was an ambush,” he told a packed courtroom filled with Lakewood police. “The shots were accurate.”
![[prison 19] Caption: This is Cellhouse 1, Pod A, from ground level inside the Sterling Correctional Facility which is located outside of Sterling, Colorado Thursday afternoon. Photographer: LEW SHERMAN Title: FREELANCE Credit: SPECIAL TO THE POST City: Sterling State: CO Country: USA Date: 19990617 ObjectName: prison 19 Keyword: PUBDATE____1999_06_22](/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/20151207__denverpostp1.jpg?w=538 "20151207__denverpost~p1.jpg")
