After being shot in the arm by Denver Police, a 24-year-old man said “sorry” 12 times in half a minute, according to body-worn camera footage released by police on Friday.
It started around 2 a.m. on Saturday, Aug. 3, as bars were closing in Lower Downtown. Officers responded to a gunshot, where a witness directed them to a man with a firearm in a parking lot at 19th and Market.
Officers contacted the man, who DPD declined to identify, at his car. They directed him to show his hands. He brought up a Glock pistol with the barrel pointed down at the ground, and officers ordered him to drop the gun.
But as the man moved to drop the gun, he appears to have accidentally pointed it directly at an officer, who then fired a single round hitting the man in the arm.
The man slumps against the side of his car as police move in, handcuff him and begin to render aid. At that moment another, unrelated gunfight breaks out nearby and officers ducked, yelling, “Get down, get down.”
(The unrelated shooting resulted in a different man being shot in the abdomen before fleeing in a car and crashing a few blocks away. He’s expected to survive. Police have identified the people involved, but no arrests have been made, and the incident is still under investigation.)
The man shot in the arm by officers, meanwhile, can be heard on the police body-worn camera saying, “I’m not a criminal, please.”
“You just pointed your f— gun at me, dude!” the officer shouts back. The suspect replies, “No, no, no, I put it down. Sorry. Sorry about that.”
As the officer is applying a tourniquet, the suspect says, “Please, bro. I’m not a criminal, bro. I was trying to save myself. Sorry brother, sorry.”
The man was not arrested, and DPD is not releasing the name of the officer who shot him.
Matt Clark, DPD’s commander of major crimes, said at a press briefing on Friday that when the man said “I was trying to save myself” he could have been referring to protecting himself from original shot fired that drew police to the area. The man was not arrested, but Clark said that is still under investigation.
That’s two or three different shootings within minutes in a small area that created a chaotic environment. Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas said at the briefing that, thankfully, no one was killed.
“The tremendous number of guns in the metro area is a significant challenge, and one that we deal with every day,” Thomas said.
Reports of unlawful discharge of a weapon have more than doubled in Denver since 2019, according to a review of DPD data. The increase in illegal gunshot reports is partly due to an increase in the number of gunshot sensors in the city.
DPD did not name the officer who shot the man in the arm, but Clark said that the officer has been on the force since 2017 and is assigned to the anti-crime team in District 6, which includes downtown.
The officer is on modified duty while the shooting is under investigation by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, Colorado State Patrol, DPD’s homicide unit and the Denver District Attorney.
Crime in Lower Downtown, especially as bars close at 2 a.m., has long been a problem and has only escalated since the pandemic.
“That area has been chosen as one of our persistently violent hotspots,” Thomas said.
Thomas added that the department has focused efforts to reduce crime after bars let out. He said DPD has added officers to the area, improved lighting and moved rideshare locations away from the busiest areas.
“We recognize that when these crowds come out of these entertainment establishments and they congregate, the likelihood of violence erupting is quite likely, and so we work to try to disperse those crowds as quickly as possible,” Thomas said.
