A 37-year-old Black man shot and killed by an Aurora police officer after an attempted traffic stop and crash Saturday night was armed and threw a gun into the grass before confronting the officer, Chief Todd Chamberlain said Tuesday.
Rajon Belt-Stubblefield crashed into two vehicles while fleeing an Aurora police officer who was trying to pull him over for speeding and a possible DUI, Chamberlain said at a news conference at Aurora Police Department headquarters.
Chamberlain declined to name the officer who shot Belt-Stubblefield, citing the fact that the officer has not yet been interviewed by 18th Judicial District critical incident investigators and that threats were made against the officer and his family.
Aurora police officials have not released body-camera video of the shooting because it has not been viewed by Belt-Stubblefield’s family, but Chamberlain said he intends to release the full video once that happens.
But Chamberlain did share still images from the video, one of which showed the officer pointing his gun at Belt-Stubblefield as he stood near a damaged vehicle.
The encounter happened over the course of three minutes from when the Aurora officer clocked Belt-Stubblefield with a speed radar and tried to pull him over near East Sixth Avenue and Sable Boulevard at 7:29 p.m., according to a timeline shared during Chamberlain’s briefing.
Belt-Stubblefield did not pull over when the officer turned on his lights and sirens, instead trying to evade the stop before rear-ending another vehicle, crossing over the median and hitting a second vehicle.
Belt-Stubblefield did not follow the officer’s orders to stay in his vehicle and show his hands, Chamberlain said. Instead, he got out of his car, tossed a handgun as he walked toward the sidewalk and started walking toward the officer.
He told bystanders repeatedly to “get that (expletive),” or pick up the gun, while moving toward the officer, Chamberlain said. The officer punched Belt-Stubblefield in an attempt to de-escalate the situation, at which point Belt-Stubblefield raised his fist and repeatedly asked if the officer was “ready for this,” Chamberlain said.
The officer shot Belt-Stubblefield as he continued to move toward him, Chamberlain said. He died at the scene.
“This is not something the officer, the department or the city of Aurora wanted,” Chamberlain said. “The officer was performing his duties. He did not choose this confrontation, it was the suspect’s actions that escalated into this.”
The officer who shot Belt-Stubblefield previously has used force while on duty and has had personnel complaints filed against him, although Chamberlain said Tuesday those complaints were “nothing major.”
Chamberlain repeatedly put the blame for the shooting on Belt-Stubblefield and highlighted the department’s many thousands of calls for service that do not involve police shootings.
But in the wake of the shooting, Aurora City Council member Alison Coombs criticized the police department’s description of events as heavily favored toward the officer’s perspective.
“The narrative provided biases the conversation against the person who was shot and killed and now cannot speak for himself,” Coombs wrote on Facebook, where she also called for the prompt release of video from the officer’s body-camera.
“The APD has not earned the trust necessary to demand months from the community before addressing why and how another unarmed black man was shot and killed by our police department,” Coombs wrote.
The police department was put under a consent decree after a 2021 investigation by the Colorado attorney general’s office sparked by Elijah McClain‘s death, which found a pattern of racially based policing and excessive force.
Advocates with the Denver-based Epitome of Black Excellence and Partnership on Tuesday released a statement criticizing Chamberlain’s comments.
The group’s chief executive officer, MiDian Holmes, was involved in one of the accidents and witnessed the shooting, according to the statement.
“Chief Chamberlain called community trust ‘fragile.’ The truth is, there is no trust,” advocates wrote. “Aurora police have squandered it through repeated acts of violence, dishonesty, and disrespect. What remains is not fragility: It is a void.”
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