Updated Oct. 3, 2024: Denver District Attorney Beth McCann announced no charges will be filed against Denver police officer Nathaniel Trobee and that he was legally justified in using potentially deadly force in the shooting of Luis Hansell Villar-Mejia. Read the decision letter .
A Denver police officer shot an armed man in a parking lot near Coors Field early Saturday morning.
In a , Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said a man — later identified as 24-year-old Luis Hansell Villar-Mejia — was shot in the arm by a police officer around 2 a.m. in a parking lot near the intersection of 19th and Market streets.
A person walking in the area flagged down the police officer — who was working crowd control in Denver’s LoDo district — and reported a man with a gun standing next to a vehicle in a nearby parking lot, Thomas said.
When the officer went to investigate, he found a vehicle matching the person’s description and told Villar-Mejia, who was standing next to it, to raise his hands, Thomas said in the briefing.
Thomas said the man didn’t comply and pulled out a gun “in a threatening manner.” When officers ordered Villar-Mejia to drop the gun, the man instead changed his grip and pointed the gun at officers, police said.
The officer fired one shot, hitting Villar-Mejia in the arm, Thomas said.
Villar-Mejia was taken to a hospital in “serious condition,” according to Thomas, but survived his injuries. No officers were injured.
Thomas said that although multiple gunshots were heard in the area, only one of them belonged to the officer.
Another shooting happened in the parking lot at the same time, and officers believe there may have been a back-and-forth shooting between the man who was shot and others in the parking lot, Thomas said.
One person was wounded in the nonpolice shooting, but he drove to a 7/11 convenience store near Downing and Lawrence streets — about two miles away from the original shooting — Thomas said.
The police shooting is being investigated by the 2nd Judicial District, including representatives from the district attorney’s office, the State Patrol and the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
