The 18-year-old man fatally shot by Aurora police early Sunday morning was beating his mother with a gun and holding her hostage in an apartment before he began shooting at police, Aurora Police Department Chief Todd Chamberlain said at a Monday briefing.
Two residents in the apartment in the 1900 block of South Vaughn Way called 911 at about 11:15 p.m. Saturday to report a man was beating his mother with a handgun.
The roommates told police that when they tried to intervene, the man brandished the gun at them and his mother and it appeared the woman was not allowed to leave, Chamberlain said.
Police arrived at the complex at 11:28 p.m. and soon requested an armored vehicle to respond.
Officers did not initially know if the man’s gun was real, but the roommates told police they saw the man load a magazine into the gun and rack it, Chamberlain said.
Officers tried to communicate with the man in both English and Spanish using a phone and bullhorn but there was “limited response,” Chamberlain said. The man and his mother immigrated from Venezuela in 2021.
The woman walked out of the second-story apartment at around 1 a.m. Sunday and was met by officers. Approximately 30 seconds later, the man walked into the apartment doorway and began shooting at police, hitting the armored vehicle.
“Once the suspect decided to make that incredibly aggressive, dangerous and life-threatening move, our officers immediately responded by firing several rounds, at which time the suspect was struck,” Chamberlain said.
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The man fell in the doorway and police attempted to perform life-saving measures. The man was taken to a hospital, where he later died.
Aurora police “tried to de-escalate this with every means possible,” Chamberlain said Monday – a concern highlighted by the department’s independent consent decree monitor in a recent report about the fatal shooting of Kilyn Lewis.
One officer is on administrative leave, which is department policy for police shootings. Police officials will release the body-worn camera footage of the shooting after it’s shown to the man’s family, Chamberlain said.
The man who was killed has not yet been publicly identified by the Arapahoe County Coroner’s Office.
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