Denver officers fatally shot a man fleeing police Monday night outside of a middle school in the city’s Westwood neighborhood, according to the police department.
Officers responded to the 900 block of South Hazel Court at about 10:30 p.m. Monday, after someone called 911 to report two people out front of a nearby school, Denver police Chief Ron Thomas said in a news briefing.
The shooting happened outside of Kepner Beacon Middle School, Denver Public Schools spokesperson Scott Pribble said.
“Three DPS patrol officers were on scene and have been placed on paid administrative leave by Denver Public Schools while the investigation into the shooting occurs,” Pribble said in an emailed statement to The Denver Post.
The school district’s patrol officers are armed with lethal weapons and patrol the district to respond to calls for assistance from all schools, Pribble said. Campus safety officers are stationed in every middle and high school in the district but carry nonlethal weapons.
Police officers and DPS patrol officers both responded in minutes and found two adults, a man and a woman, outside the school, Thomas said.
Officers were running the pair’s IDs and checking for outstanding warrants when the man asked if he could leave, Thomas said.
When officers told him he was not free to leave, the man began to back away and then turned and ran while pulling out a gun, Thomas said.
Denver police and school patrol officers chased the man and ordered him to drop the weapon, but he shot at them, Thomas said. Two Denver police officers and one DPS officer shot back, striking the man.
Paramedics took the man, who has not been publicly identified, to the hospital, where he died from his injuries, Thomas said.
He will be identified by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.
The woman disappeared during the shooting, according to Thomas.
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