Updated April 13, 2025: Eighth Judicial District Attorney Gordon McLaughlin announced no charges would be filed against Larimer County sheriff’s deputy Lee Blattner and that he was legally justified in using potentially deadly force in the shooting of Matthew Martinez. Read the decision letter .
An armed man was shot and injured Monday morning by a Larimer County sheriff’s deputy north of Fort Collins after an early morning car chase, officials said.
At about 2:45 a.m. Monday, a Larimer County deputy pulled over a woman near East Prospect Road and Riverside Avenue in Fort Collins, according to a .
The deputy asked the driver to exit her car, sheriff’s officials said. When she did, her passenger moved into the driver’s seat and fled the scene.
Deputies followed the fleeing man with lights and sirens, but he continued to elude them for several miles through northern Fort Collins, according to the sheriff’s office.
The unidentified man crashed into a ditch in the 2600 block of Terry Lake Road, near Colorado 1, sheriff’s officials said.
He got out of the car and approached deputies with a knife in his hand, the sheriff’s office said. He then got into an unoccupied patrol car and began driving around deputies, who were on foot. That’s when Blattner shot him.
Deputies got the man out of the car and began to administer first aid. Sheriff’s officials said paramedics took the man to the hospital with serious injuries.
Colorado 1 was closed in both directions between Gregory Road and U.S. 287 during the shooting investigation for roughly 10 hours Monday, according to the Fort Collins Police Department. The highway just before 1:30 p.m.
The Eighth Judicial District , led by the Fort Collins Police Department, investigated the shooting.
