An hour later, two people called 911 to report a man carrying a rifle through this small city about 40 miles west of Steamboat Springs.

“I really didn’t think anything of it,” Sholes said in a recent interview. “I didn’t have no warrants, didn’t do anything wrong to think I should be worried.”

But the cops were worried. They recognized Sholes from a litany of previous encounters, including a time earlier that year when police say he brandished a knife and barricaded himself in an abandoned home.

“Tanner is extremely violent, unpredictable and a multi-time convicted felon,” a responding officer later wrote in a police report. Other officers called him “erratic and volatile.”

The only offense police suspected Sholes of that morning was violating a protection order. But authorities determined he needed to be stopped, so they devised a plan, according to police reports and body-camera footage: They would run him over with their SUV.

Moffat County Undersheriff Chip McIntyre gave several commands to Sholes to stop and drop to the ground, video shows. The man continued walking, but raised his arms to his side.

Twenty seconds later, a sheriff’s lieutenant revved his engine and rammed his vehicle into Sholes at 20 mph to 30 mph, according to footage of the incident. Sholes suffered tears of the ACL, meniscus, rotator cuff and bicep, among other injuries. He still lives with pain.

“I’m guilty no matter what it is,” he said. “There’s no gray area — it’s always black and white with these guys.”

Violent police encounters and excessive-force allegations have become more common in recent years in this city of 9,000 tucked in Colorado’s northwest corner.

Craig has seen just three police shootings in its recorded history, and they’ve all occurred since 2023 — a per-capita incident rate 20 times higher than Denver’s. Meanwhile, the city paid out at least $400,000 to settle three separate claims of excessive force by the Craig Police Department within a 10-month period in 2020 and 2021. Several times, police have used force on individuals, only to later discover they had stopped the wrong person.

One resident, Christopher Rothermund, received two settlements from the city over 20 years, both stemming from violent police encounters. Officers shot and killed him in 2023 after he pointed a gun at them following a pursuit in downtown Craig.

Media attention largely focuses on larger, more urban police departments. The Denver Post focused on excessive-force complaints in a smaller Colorado community to underscore that these incidents also routinely occur outside the broader spotlight.

No documentation provided to The Post by the Craig Police Department or the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office showed officers received any discipline for these violent responses, including the 2023 incident with the SUV. In fact, several have since been promoted.

One sheriff’s detective was part of the team that ran over Sholes and also fatally shot Rothermund. Police reports and interviews show the detective, at his previous job in Routt County, was accused of tapping his ex-wife’s phone and making threats. He remains employed by the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office.

“You’ve got recycled bad cops in a lot of these districts,” said David Lane, a longtime Colorado attorney who specializes in police misconduct cases. “They’re bad in major metro police stations and are now the law in these smaller jurisdictions.”

Residents who’ve interacted with law enforcement in Craig say they’re scared to call 911 for fear of what might happen.

“They’re really evil people,” said Croix Orona, who received a settlement after being shocked with a Taser repeatedly by police seven years ago. “They think they’re a gang. They think they can do whatever they want to people.”

Craig police representatives, along with McIntyre, who is now the Moffat County sheriff, did not respond to repeated interview requests from The Post.

Craig City Manager Peter Brixius called the recent police shootings and settlements “unusual and unfortunate,” but said the department was justified in using force in all of those cases.

“Our police officers are highly trained,” he said in an interview. “We pride ourselves on the courteous nature of our officers. When they’re forced into an incident, they will take appropriate actions to protect the citizens of Craig.”

Matt Karzen, the district attorney for the 14th Judicial District, which includes Craig, said law enforcement officials there “operate with and demand integrity in the performance of their duties. I am not aware of any effort or culture in the towns or counties of northwest Colorado, in my time as DA, to cover up misconduct by officers.”

The Post compiled this report from lawsuits, police reports, body-worn camera footage, internal affairs investigations, settlement agreements and interviews with those injured by police, and their families.

‘This is not legal’

On July 23, 2018, police received an anonymous call about an individual breaking into a trailer at the Cedar Mountain Mobile Home Community in Craig.

The caller reported that a tall, bearded man wearing a hoodie was standing in the dark outside one of the homes.

The officers didn’t know where the home was located, so they wandered around the neighborhood looking for the right location or a suspect, according to a 2020 federal lawsuit.

Croix Orona was sitting on the steps of a camper in pitch-black darkness when officers stopped to talk to him. A family friend owned the trailer, and he was staying there.

Despite Orona not matching the physical description relayed by the caller, police immediately started questioning him as if he were the suspect, the lawsuit states. When Orona declined to answer questions from the officers, they quickly approached him.

“What am I (expletive) doing?” Orona said, according to body-worn camera footage reviewed by The Post.

Police wrote in an incident report that Orona took a “fighting stance” and that they believed he was holding something in his right hand. But video shows Orona raising his arms and opening his hands. He wasn’t holding anything.

“I wasn’t going to fight them,” Orona said in an interview.

He moved to open the trailer. That’s when officers deployed their Tasers.

“This is where I’m staying!” Orona said in the body-camera footage. “This is not legal. This is not (expletive) legal.”

He cried out for help as officers used the Taser like a stun gun, delivering electric shocks directly to Oronoa’s skin. He lost consciousness, then began having a seizure. Orona said he remembers waking up in the hospital to medical staff giving him a catheter.

He was charged with resisting arrest and obstruction — charges the district attorney later dropped, according to the lawsuit.

Shortly after the incident, Orona’s grandfather filed a complaint with the Craig Police Department. A subsequent internal affairs investigation found the officers’ actions were “articulated and justified.” The officers were exonerated. It’s not clear whether they ever found the person breaking into the trailer.

In 2020, the city of Craig paid Orona $60,000 to settle his claims.

One man, 3 violent police encounters

Law enforcement was also quite familiar with another member of Orona’s family: his uncle Christopher Rothermund.

Rothermund was a “smart ass,” his father, Orlando Rothermund, said in an interview. “He was very thoughtful and loving, but he was a pain in the ass.”

This abrasive attitude toward police led him to constant trouble. He racked up arrests beginning in 1994 for a bevy of different offenses: traffic violations, resisting arrest, obstructing police, assault, menacing, trespassing and violating restraining orders.

The cops knew Rothermund — and used force against him at least three times over the years.

On Feb. 13, 1999, two officers responded to Rothermund’s house on reports of an argument between him and his wife.

Officers never asked permission to enter the house, had no probable cause and lacked a search warrant or arrest warrant, according to a federal lawsuit Rothermund filed against the officers in 2000. When asked what the argument was about, he told police that it was none of their business and asked them to leave.

The officers moved Rothermund into the hallway, where they “physically assaulted” him by “striking, handcuffing, pushing and shoving him, and pulling his hair out,” the lawsuit states. They also hit him with pepper spray.

Craig police initiated a criminal investigation into Rothermund.

A judge in that case blasted the officers’ actions that day, according to court documents, saying, “There is no constitutional right that protects police officers from obnoxious people.”

“One of the occupational hazards of being an officer is taking the verbal abuse and putting up with the attitude that some people have toward police,” the judge wrote.

The case was dismissed. Rothermund later reached an undisclosed settlement with the city.

Twenty years later, it happened again.

Craig police responded to a trespassing call at the Kum & Go gas station near downtown on May 20, 2020. They were looking for a man named Frank Hickson, who had multiple warrants out for his arrest, according to a police report.

An officer stopped a man they believed to be Hickson outside another gas station across the street. An argument ensued. The man started running, and the officer used a Taser to shock him in the back, the police report states.

At that point, the officer realized he didn’t have Hickson, he wrote in his report. He had just shocked Rothermund, hitting him with all four probes of the device. Rothermund said his fingers went numb.

The following year, just seven months after the city settled with his nephew, Orona, Craig officials handed Rothermund a $30,000 check.

But that wouldn’t be the last violent encounter he had with city police.

On March 31, 2023, a witness at the Cool Water Grill in Craig noticed Rothermund get nervous when an officer walked into the restaurant. The officer found Rothermund had a warrant out for his arrest — which his family said was related to a $100 city nuisance ticket for keeping an inoperable vehicle on a gas station’s property.

The officer told Rothermund he wanted to speak with him, but Rothermund ignored the request and took off, according to a decision letter from the 14th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.

Rothermund pulled out a handgun and pointed it at the officer, the letter states.

“I wanna die,” he told police. “Shoot me.” Rothermund put the gun in his mouth.

Moffat County sheriff’s deputies responded, telling Rothermund to get on the ground. He did not comply.

“I’m gonna die before I go to jail,” he said, according to body-worn camera footage of the incident.

Video shows Rothermund raising the gun again in the direction of the officers. Two of them fired at Rothermund, 52, killing him.

“For a $100 warrant,” his father said, “I lost my son.”

Family members said Rothermund suffered from mental health issues, including post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. He lived for spells in his car by one of the gas stations in town.

Rothermund was struggling before his death, Orlando Rothermund said. He didn’t want to go back to jail because he kept getting beaten up.

Britney Rothermund, Christopher’s daughter, last saw her father two months before he died. They went drinking at the Popular Bar in Craig — their favorite haunt to shoot pool. Her father was really good, she said, playing in leagues over the years.

He filtered in and out of her life, she said. Her parents split when she was young and her father worked out of state for a while.

He spent some time in prison, but frequently sent Britney letters and, one time, a jewelry box he made out of old newspapers.

In high school, police used to pull Britney over repeatedly on her way to school, she said. The cops, she said, would always ask about her dad.

“I don’t understand why the cops were always bothering us,” she said.

Orlando Rothermund, a former Los Angeles police officer who moved to Craig in 1979, said he had always believed in law enforcement.

“They’re too trigger-happy now,” he said. “They don’t use common sense. They know they can get away with it.”

Suicide attempt turns into police shooting

Craig’s most recent police shooting — the third since 2023 — occurred the morning of April 26 at 730 Ashley Road.

Troy Curtis Jr. and his wife of 11 years, Elena, were going through a divorce. Curtis was in between medications for bipolar disorder and depression, he said.

The night before, the couple argued via text message regarding their relationship and separation.

“With each day, my mind cares less what happens next,” Curtis wrote to Elena, according to messages included in a decision letter from the 14th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. “So I’m letting go. You get what you wanted. It’s not what I wanted.”

Alarmed, Elena ran downstairs to check on Curtis. She believed he would try to leave the house to kill himself, according to the DA’s letter.

Elena slept on the couch that night to keep an eye on him. At 8:30 a.m. the next day, she woke Curtis up, telling him he needed to return to the hospital to address his mental health concerns.

Curtis felt trapped, he said in an interview. He grabbed his wallet, phone and a handgun from the closet and went to his truck.

Elena texted Curtis’s father, Troy Curtis Sr., to come to their house immediately. She then called 911 to report that her husband was suicidal and had a gun.

Curtis Jr. tried to start the car, but Elena had the passenger door open, preventing him from leaving.

He loaded the gun and attempted to raise it to his head. At that moment, his father lunged toward Curtis Jr. and the two began to struggle, according to interviews and the prosecutor’s letter. Curtis Jr. head-butted his father multiple times and pistol-whipped him with the gun.

Curtis Sr. told The Post that he eventually pinned his son over the center console of the truck. The father also grabbed his son’s wrist, with the gun stuck to the floorboard of the vehicle, pointing away from them.

Sgt. Dalton Caudell of the Craig Police Department arrived to see Curtis Sr. on top of his son in the truck.

At first, Curtis Sr. said he was relieved to see police at the scene. Then he saw Caudell’s face.

“I went into panic mode when I saw the officer’s demeanor,” Curtis Sr. said. “I knew there was no chance of communicating with him.”

The whole encounter took mere seconds.

Caudell yelled multiple times for Curtis Jr. to drop the gun, according to body-worn camera footage released by police.

Curtis Sr. told Caudell to grab the weapon, which was still pinned in his son’s hand on the car’s floorboard, facing away from the officer. The gun did not appear in the body-camera video.

The video appears to capture audio of Curtis Jr.’s gun firing twice, with bullets traveling through the rear passenger door away from the officer.

Caudell then opened fire, shooting Curtis Jr. six times in the upper shoulder and upper torso. Somehow, Curtis Sr. was not shot.

“Are you kidding me?” the father said in the video.

At no point was the gun pointed at the officer, both Curtises said, and Curtis Jr. said he had stopped resisting his father. He said he never threatened his father, his wife or the officer that day. He only intended to hurt himself.

“He never made any attempt to de-escalate,” Curtis Jr. said of Caudell. “If he tried to take my gun, I wouldn’t have resisted.”

Curtis Sr. said he didn’t understand why the officer felt lethal force was the only answer.

The bullets, miraculously, missed Curtis Jr.’s organs. He still has a bullet lodged against his right lung and one in his chest. He sustained two fractured ribs and a broken arm.

It’s been difficult to eat and sleep in the aftermath of the shooting, Curtis Jr. said. He’s shed 30 pounds since April.

After taking a few weeks off to recover, Curtis Jr. returned to work at an auto body shop in Steamboat Springs.

An avid gun enthusiast with several family members in law enforcement, Curtis Jr. said he doesn’t think he could call 911 if he needed help. Even the sight of a uniformed officer with the badge and gun holster gives him anxiety now, deep, physical anxiety burrowed into his chest.

“I’m more afraid of them now than anyone else,” he said.

Curtis Jr. was charged with felony menacing and unlawful private transfer of a firearm.

Karzen, the district attorney, ruled the shooting was justified this month. Caudell will not be charged.

Caudell, in an email, said he could not comment on the case due to the pending criminal proceedings against Curtis Jr.

‘Cops are supposed to protect people’

Civil rights attorneys say rural law enforcement agencies often lack training and resources, which can lead to constitutional violations.

“You see a pattern in smaller police departments in less urban environments,” said Raymond Bryant, Orona’s attorney. “Officers think the only tool they have is force.”

And when they do use force, they’re unlikely to be disciplined for their actions, these lawyers said.

Research suggests rural areas tend to be more politically conservative and less focused on police reforms. On top of that, rural residents are far more likely to be gun owners, which may increase police anticipation of threat, according to a 2024 study by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Another study, in the New York University Law Review, noted that small jurisdictions are far less likely than larger cities to have legal and political accountability structures, such as police commissions and inspectors general, a robust media presence or an active plaintiffs’ bar.

“In the absence of external prodding, small jurisdictions may be even less likely than their big-city counterparts to fix these problems on their own,” the report’s author noted.

In small, rural areas like Craig, police are more likely to know the suspects and make assumptions about them, said Elizabeth Wang, Tanner Sholes’ attorney.

“They were primed to be in a headspace where they wanted to escalate anything that happened with Mr. Sholes,” she said.

Wang specializes in cases involving people injured by police. She said she had never seen an incident like the one Sholes encountered, in which law enforcement used a vehicle as a weapon to run over a pedestrian with premeditation.

“There’s no training on this,” she said. “There’s no policy to ever use a vehicle to hit a pedestrian.”

Sholes last year filed a federal lawsuit that accused Craig police officers and Moffat County sheriff’s personnel of excessive force and violating his constitutional rights.

Michelle Workman, Sholes’ partner and mother of his children, said she’s watched his relationship with police deteriorate over the years. Every time they interact with him, she said, it’s multiple officers with their guns drawn.

“In my mind, they want to murder Tanner,” she said.

In a small town like Craig, police concentrate on the same few people, Workman said. Once you get a name with the police department, you earn a target on your back.

“If you have a run-in before, that shouldn’t smear you as a bad person,” she said. “Everyone makes bad choices. Tanner’s biggest problem: He got in trouble and he’s never been left alone.”

Sholes said his knee still causes him a good deal of pain. A former wildland firefighter, he loves camping and hiking and running around with his kids. But the injury limits his activity, he said. He can’t chase his children like he used to. Everything has to be done a little slower.

“It’s put a damper on my whole life,” he said.

Sholes avoids public spaces for the most part out of fear of the police. He opts against taking his kids to the public pool or city functions.

His children, he said, are deathly afraid of law enforcement.

“They think every time police are called, Tanner’s gonna die,” Workman said.

What kind of message does this send to children, Sholes said.

“Cops are supposed to protect people, not hurt people,” he said. “My kids have seen the opposite of that.”

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But people who’ve had run-ins with Luster say he shouldn’t even have been hired by the northwest Colorado sheriff’s office in 2021.

Police reports show the Routt County Sheriff’s Office — where Luster worked before getting hired by Moffat County — investigated him in 2019 for several allegations involving his ex-wife, girlfriends and the men who would later date them.

Luster, along with the Moffat County sheriff, did not respond to requests for comment.

David Roberts, who dated Luster’s ex-wife, told an investigator that Luster said around 2012 that Roberts should stay away from Luster’s ex-wife or he would kill him and cut off his head, according to a report. Roberts told The Denver Post that Luster used to hang outside her house in his patrol car and watch when Roberts was there.

In another report, a former girlfriend of Luster’s told police that he had punched his wife in the face.

A friend of Luster’s, Mitch Locke, now the Routt County coroner, told investigators that Luster believed his wife was cheating on him. Luster asked Locke to borrow some money, and the sheriff’s deputy allegedly told him he wanted to purchase a device that would plug into a phone jack and record calls.

Luster told Locke that he recorded a phone conversation between his wife and her boyfriend, one report states. Locke said he even listened to a short section of the recorded phone conversation.

The Routt County Sheriff’s Office referred the investigation into Luster to the 14th Judicial District Attorney. The assistant DA at the time, Matt Karzen, declined to prosecute the wiretapping case because the alleged offenses occurred outside the statute of limitations, according to a decision letter reviewed by The Post.

The Post requested the 183-page report on the sheriff’s 2019 administrative investigation into Luster’s alleged behavior, but was told it would cost $1,023.52.

An executive summary of the investigation showed the agency examined 19 allegations against Luster. Six were found to be sustained, seven were deemed unfounded, five were not sustained, and one was exonerated.

“Unfounded,” as defined by the sheriff’s policy, means an investigation determines the alleged acts did not occur or are frivolous. Complaints considered “not sustained” are when the investigation determines that there is insufficient evidence to sustain the complaint or fully exonerate the individual in question.

Four of the allegations that investigators sustained — meaning they were found to have occurred — were redacted in the report reviewed by The Post. The only two sustained allegations that were not redacted concerned Luster admitting to having a girlfriend ride with him in his work vehicle without prior supervisor approval.

The undersheriff, Doug Scherar, wrote in the summary that Luster was advised that had any of the sustained allegations come to light in a timely manner, “strict disciplinary measures would have resulted.” The two most concerning issues that came to light in the investigation were part of the redacted portions of the document.

It’s not clear whether Luster was ultimately disciplined.

Despite the allegations, the Moffat County Sheriff’s Office hired Luster in 2021.

Roberts and other people who say they were threatened told The Post that Luster never should have gotten another job in law enforcement after the Routt County accusations.

“He has no business being a cop, in my book,” Roberts said.

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Deputies were called to a home in the 6500 block of Tranters Creek Way at 11:32 p.m. when someone reported a disturbance involving a gun, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.

The deputies found a gun in the driveway and made contact with a man and woman inside the home. When they detained the man, he “became physically aggressive toward deputies and obtained control of a deputy’s Taser,” sheriff’s officials said.

“The suspect deployed the Taser, and a fight ensued,” agency officials said.

Two deputies fired their guns at least once, hitting the man. They started medical care until Security Fire medics arrived, but the man was pronounced dead at the scene.

The deputies were taken to a hospital with minor injuries, and both are on paid administrative leave.

The Colorado Springs Police Department is investigating the shooting.

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Two Denver officers were investigating fireworks in the city’s Montbello neighborhood just after 9 p.m. on July 1. While driving, the pair found a group of people standing next to a fireworks launcher outside a house in the 4300 block of Del Rio Court.

Less than 20 seconds after they arrived, one officer shot a man twice in the house’s driveway, body-worn-camera video released by the Denver Police Department shows.

That man, who has not been publicly identified, had begun to retreat into the house’s garage when police arrived, the video shows.

“What are you walking away for as soon as the cops show up?” one officer can be heard asking on the video. “Get back over here.”

That officer starts to follow the man up the driveway, but the officer stops and pulls out his gun.

“Get your (expletive) hand out of your waistband,” the officer says, raising his gun toward the man. “Hands up! Hands up!”

The man appeared to be arming himself and was looking over his shoulder with his back to the officer, Matt Clark, commander of the Denver Police Department’s Major Crimes Division, said in a Wednesday news conference.

In the body-worn-camera video, the man appears to be turning toward the officer with his hands in the air when the officer fires twice. It’s unclear if anything is in his hands because of a blur placed over the man’s head by the police department.

The man isn’t holding a gun when he collapses to the ground, the video shows.

Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas called the officer’s actions a “reasonable response” in the news conference.

“His movements were obvious, he was accessing that weapon, he did have a weapon, the officer recognized that he had a weapon,” Thomas said. “…It’s just fractions of a second that it would take someone to move from a place where they have a weapon in their hand to where that weapon is being pointed at that officer and shots being fired.”

The man was shot in the leg and is expected to survive, Clark said.

“Oh my god,” the second officer can be heard saying on video from her own body-worn camera. “Wait, does he have a gun?”

The officer who shot the man tells his partner that the man threw the gun into the rocks on the side of the house, but the body-worn-camera video does not show either officer retrieving it.

Investigators recovered a loaded handgun from the rocky area next to the house after the shooting, Clark said.

Thomas said the man threw the gun after he was shot.

The officer, who has not been identified, joined the police department in 2019 and has not been involved in any previous police shootings, Clark said.

This is a developing story and may be updated.

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The agency did not name the officer or the suspect.

Shortly after 2 p.m. Thursday, a Wheat Ridge Police officer patrolling Youngfield Street and West 32nd Avenue recognized a suspect with a felony warrant, the agency said. Alex Rose, spokesperson for the Wheat Ridge Police Department, said the nature of the warrant was part of the investigation and could not be released at this time.

When the officer pulled up behind the suspect, the suspect ran west beneath the Interstate 70 underpass along West 32nd Avenue, Wheat Ridge Police said.

The officer chased the suspect on foot and “a struggle ensued,” police said. The agency did not provide further information about the altercation.

The police officer shot the suspect, who was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead, police said.

The First Judicial District Attorney’s Office is investigating the shooting. The police officer was placed on paid administrative leave, per agency policy, and the agency has launched an internal investigation to determine whether the use of force was a policy violation, Rose said.

“To preserve the integrity of the investigation, no further public comment is available at this time,” police wrote.

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The severity of the person’s injuries and other details about the incident were not immediately available, spokesperson Alex Rose said.

The officer who shot the person was not injured in the confrontation.

Wheat Ridge police referred to the person who was shot as a suspect, but did not say what they were suspected of.

Police are asking people to avoid the area, which is near Interstate 70.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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Police were called to the 100 block of Glen Royal Drive in south Pueblo at 11:44 a.m. when someone reported a man was making threats to harm members of his family, the Pueblo Police Department said in a news release.

Officers could see he had a gun, and one officer shot him after the man did not follow orders to drop the weapon. He was pronounced dead at the scene.

No officers or bystanders were injured in the shooting, police officials said.

The 10th Judicial District’s Critical Incident Response Team will investigate the shooting, and the man will be identified by the Pueblo County Coroner’s Office.

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Officers received the call just after 1:30 a.m. for a disturbance in the 100 block of East Pikes Peak Avenue in downtown Colorado Springs. Officers monitoring downtown cameras spotted a man matching the description and saw that he had what appeared to be a firearm, according to police.

When the officers approached, the man ran and reached into his waistband. One officer fired at the man and hit him. Officers rendered medical aid, but the man died at the scene, according to police.

Officers later found a gun at the scene of the shooting.

El Paso County Sheriff’s Office will investigate the shooting. Colorado Springs police will release more information, including body camera video, within 21 days, according to the department. The sheriff’s office also is investigating a June 23 shooting by Colorado Springs police.

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The man, identified as 46-year-old Brian Allen, died later at a hospital.

On June 23, Denver Public School patrol officers and Denver Police officers responded to a 911 call about two people trespassing in front of Kepner Beacon Middle School.

Body camera footage provided by the Denver Police Department on Thursday showed an officer asking the man and woman by the school for their names and date of birth.

An officer runs their information through their system and walks back to the man and woman. Denver Police Lt. Rich Laber said during the news conference that both people had active warrants for parole violation.

The man asks if he can leave, and the officer says he cannot.

“I’ve got to talk to you, man, I’m sorry,” the officer said in the video. “We’ve got to do the whole thing.”

The man backs up, turns to run and appears to grab something out of a bag he’s carrying.

The officers in the video chase the man and warn him to “drop the gun” multiple times.

It’s unclear from the video who fired first, but gunshot sounds ring out. Laber said the man fired at officers first, shooting eight rounds, total.

Two Denver police officers and one Denver Public Schools officer shot a combined 38 rounds in response.

DPD Chief Ron Thomas said during the news conference this was a sufficient response.

Officers approach the body of the man who is sprawled out on the ground, telling him to drop the gun. The man does not appear to be moving.

The woman, who has not been identified, fled the scene. Police are still looking for the woman for her parole violations.

Paramedics took Allen to a hospital, where he died from his injuries, police said.

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The shooting happened just after 9 p.m. Tuesday in the driveway of a home in the 4300 block of North Del Rio Court, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said in a news briefing.

As of that Tuesday night briefing, the man was in surgery with serious injuries, Thomas said.

Two Denver officers were patrolling the area that night when they heard fireworks, Thomas said.

As the officers drove north on Del Rio from East 43rd Avenue, they found a group of five people standing outside of a house next to a fireworks launcher, Thomas said.

One of the five reportedly began walking away toward the house as officers approached and reached for his waistband, according to Thomas.

Thomas said officers told the man to stop, but he allegedly pulled a gun out of his waistband while facing the two Denver officers.

That’s when one officer shot the man twice, striking him at least once in the leg. The man and the officer have not been publicly identified.

The shooting remains under investigation.

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