Hello everyone.
Thank you for being here.
My name is Tony Spurlock.
I'm the Douglas County sheriff.
I want to share a little bit of information
about a shooting that occurred here
at the Lincoln station at the RTD
parking structure last night around 10:40.
Deputies from our pattern Crimes Unit,
which specifically is looking for.
Lot of thieves and stolen cars.
Checks this garage notified,
notices a suspicious black and color Kia.
Backed into a parking spot with a
shade visor on the front windshield,
so he calls in additional officers.
646 more officers arrive and
they make contact with the car,
and almost immediately when they're
making contact with the car,
officers are being shot at from the
passenger windows on both sides of the car.
We returned fire.
This took place three times.
There were three separate.
Volleys of shootings between the suspects
and our officers and each one of those.
The suspects fired at US first
on all of those.
We do have a small snippet
from the body worn camera.
We're going to try to get to you all
here very shortly that depicts the
initial contact with our deputies.
We don't have an exact round
account right now,
but probably roughly in the
neighborhood between the two.
There were about 35 rounds fired
between the suspects and our deputies.
One of our deputies, he is fine.
He was hit with the glass in
the face from the driver side.
Window.
And he was also,
miraculously a bullet goes
through the sleeve of his shirt,
and you can see that it where
it went through his shirt.
He was not hit by any bullets,
he was just hit by glass and he
was treated and released at a
local hospital here in Longtree.
The suspects have been identified.
We're not releasing information
on them as of yet.
We have not notified next of kin.
I can tell you that they were
in a stolen car out of Pueblo.
I can tell you that both of them
had warrants for their arrest
related to auto theft and theft.
Also,
one of the suspects was an attempt to
locate by the Denver Police Department,
armed and dangerous for questioning
for another shooting that took
place in the Denver Metro area
in the last three months.
This is,
again,
is another one of the things
that law enforcement across the
metro area are seeing every day.
Stolen cars,
suspects in the stolen cars armed
and they're engaging police
officers around the metro area.
Our officers were very very lucky
last night that something didn't
happen more dangerous to them.
The individuals engaged us first and
then we returned fire and as I said,
both of those individuals were
were deceased were killed here
in the in their car.
While they were shooting at our officers.
I I'm available for a few questions.
It is being investigated right now
through the 18th Judicial district
critical Incident Response Team.
Detectives from the Aurora
Police Department are the lead on
the investigation right now,
and I suspect that that will take
some time for them to complete it.
They're still working on the scene right now.
Getting into karma behind that.
So the car was not running
to the best of my knowledge.
I do not believe that it was running,
but they were in the front seat of
the car passenger and driver seat.
They had a shade visor on the
front and then the side windows
were extremely dark tent so the
officers could not see inside,
but they knew there was someone
inside there because they
could see the car moving.
In the car, the driver side.
Yes, and they both. Yes.
So both the driver and the
passenger opened fire on our
deputies out their side windows.
And then we engaged them through
the front window and the side
windows as well.
So just two people in the car,
just two people in the car.
Contact with the deputies.
So the deputies were
looking for stolen vehicles.
They pull on this vehicle,
he knows they had no license plates on it.
There's a clue and it's tucked
back into kind of a kind of
a hidden area and backed in.
So he called his fellow officers that
work in this pattern Crimes unit.
They came over to contact it
like we do a lot, contact them,
see who's inside it and
and then they engaged us.
Themselves. Yes. So they announced
themselves as law enforcement.
They knocked on the window on the passenger
side window and the driver side window
and got no response audibly from them.
But they could see that there was they
could see that the car was movement
moving from them inside the car.
And then just out of out of nowhere,
the suspects inside the car,
both sides started to shoot at our officers.
Live here. Exact card.
I don't know where they live at this point.
And I suspect that they were here either.
Hiding. Tucked back into the the spot,
maybe getting ready to go
to sleep, I don't know.
We're still investigating the
inside of the car to see if there
were drugs or anything else,
but we did locate at least
two weapons inside the car.
OK, we've been having a
string of auto thefts.
All across the northern
border of Douglas County.
And this is just one of those places
where they often go and steal cars
from also hospital parking lots,
big business parking lots.
And so this unit specifically designed to
go after people that are stealing cars.
Pattern crimes unit.
I'm not releasing the information
on the guns, but I will tell
you that we did release or we
did find 2 weapons in the car.
Japanese. Yes, all six
deputies returned fire.
They're all on leave today by our protocol,
on administrative leave while the CRT
investigation and then the deputy that
was injured obviously on home and at home.
Yes, they they were and
and we're going to try to
get the the best snippet for you
all and we'll get that through
kosher hiding the PIO and we'll
get that information sent to you.
Yes, I'm told that there's about
a 7 to 9 minute span between the
three volleys of the shootouts
between the suspects and the police.
Little bit more about.
Where the prompt fires.
OK, they all have priors.
They all had warrants for their arrest
and they were under the age of 32.
Yes. Are they from
that? I don't know. Yeah.
Price of gold?
Increase what?
So. We have been saying.
For the last year and a half,
that auto theft has been
the number one crime.
That has been affecting the basically
the metro area because it's related
to other accelerator crimes.
Theft, burglary and and drug
related and we are seeing people
that are involved with weapons
as well in these auto thefts.
Were the weapons here handguns?
We're not releasing that
information right now.
OK, the community can
help in a number of ways.
Take your valuables out of the car.
Make sure your car is locked and then
when you see something suspicious,
call your local law enforcement because
they're out prowling at night time
and groups of people stealing cars.
And then I would also urge anyone
who was the victim of an auto
theft to contact the District
Attorney and their jurisdiction and
demand prosecution of auto thefts.
We can no longer be letting people that
are stealing cars just out on PR bonds.
These people are. Violent.
They are shooting officers,
they are shooting other people.
They're involved in a lot
of other criminal activity.
And we have the opportunity.
We need the district attorneys
behind us saying that they are
going to prosecute these cases and
we've got to find ways to stop PR,
bonding every person who steals the car.
There were no civilians
that we know of, and we've.
Spoke to a lot of people that observed it.
All the people that were involved were
either police officers or the two suspects.
They were all in in uniforms, yes.
Yeah, right. They're all in uniforms.
No, we had a mixed bag of marked
cars and unmarked cars. Yes,
they all announce themselves
as law enforcement.
I couldn't answer that.
I don't know. Sure. Do you feel
like this kind of puts out?
Well, I can tell you right
now in Douglas County,
if you steal a car in Douglas County,
we're going to chase you.
We are going to be aggressive on
anyone who steals cars in this county
and I I'm asking for every other
judicial district to be aggressive
in the prosecution of auto thieves.
If you're stealing cars and you're
stealing property from citizens,
you need to be held accountable for that.
And so here in Douglas County,
we take it very serious.
We have it a specific unit just designed
to go after folks that are stealing cars.
And it is our goal to to make sure that
the that people are stealing cars,
they don't come to this county and do it.
A reader.
We have a number of license plate readers,
LPR's. We also have flock cameras.
And then on a number of our cars,
we also have mobile LPR's.
And then we have the kinds that
are stationed around that.
We can move all, all around the county.
Those are very, very successful.
They're very helpful to us to
identify cars that are stolen.
Although this car right here had
no license plates on it, so.
That's a moot point.
They would not have been registered for that.
A4 door other than that I can't tell you.
Although I I you heard on the you you
heard in in Twitter world that Keos is
one of the cards that's easy to steal.
I don't know that for myself personally,
but that's what this car is.
For more. Pardon me,
I'm sorry. All shootings.
I believe this is the first officer
involved shooting we've had this year.
Yeah, that's correct, yes.
We don't have that information yet.
We do know that they were wanted and so
they're involved in the criminal element,
but other than that, that's all I have.
Are your stats for.
No, we don't. But I can get you that.
I can tell you that we've had well
over 400 cars stolen this year
so far out of Douglas County and
a a large number of recoveries.
Yes, we can get that information to you, yes.
Anything else? Alright.
Thank you all very much.
I appreciate it.
Thanks for being here.