An Arvada police officer was killed early Sunday morning during an exchange of gunfire with a suspect as the officer tried to break up a family disturbance, Arvada police Chief Link Strate said.
The officer who died was Dillon Michael Vakoff, 27, Strate said during a morning news conference. Vakoff and another officer responded to a call about a “large family disturbance” in the 6700 block of West 51st Avenue at 1:41 a.m., Strate said.
When the two officers arrived, they found a “chaotic scene,” with multiple people in the street, he said.
The officers were attempting to separate “belligerent and uncooperative” people in the street when the suspect began shooting. The suspect shot a woman, at which point the two officers returned fire.
The suspect — who has not yet been publicly identified — then shot Vakoff, Strate said.
The chief cautioned that the investigation is in the early stages and information is preliminary.
The second officer tried to help Vakoff, who was taken to a hospital, where he died.
The suspect was also shot and hospitalized. Both the woman who was wounded and the suspect are expected to survive, Strate said. The suspect was still hospitalized and in police custody Sunday, he said.
Strate said investigators are not sure how the woman was involved in the disturbance.
Vakoff joined the Arvada Police Department in 2019 and previously served six years in the U.S. Air Force, rising to the rank of staff sergeant, Strate said. He was in training to be a SWAT officer.
“Dillon is an example of everything that is good about a police officer,” Strate said.
Arlene Hackenberg, who was staying in a house nearby the fatal shooting, said she woke up to flashing police lights early Sunday morning, and that her friend heard three shots.
The neighborhood is made up of a few houses and apartments on a dead-end street tucked between Interstate 76, vacant greenhouses and a business park. It can be rough,
Hackenberg said, and there have been problems on the street before.“It’s a shame, my heart goes out to the officer and his family,” she said.
Strate did not take questions during the Sunday morning news conference.
Gov. Jared Polis said in a statement Sunday that he was monitoring the situation in Arvada.
“My thoughts are with the family and friends of Arvada officer Dillon Michael Vakoff,” he said.
Vakoff’s death comes just 15 months after another Arvada police officer, Gordan Beesley, 51, was shot and killed in an ambush on June 21, 2021. They are the only two Arvada police officers to be fatally shot on the job, according to the nonprofit organization Officer Down Memorial Page.
Only two other Arvada officers have died in the line of duty since 1961, according to the organization. Robert Beghtol drowned in 1961 and Walter Northey was struck by a vehicle in 1979.
