Deputy killed, 6 injured after shots fired in Denver suburb
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Sarah Aarthun, CNN
(CNN) — Five officers were shot and one of them killed following a noise complaint at an apartment complex in a Denver suburb, according to the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office.
Two civilians also were shot and the suspect was shot and killed by police, Sheriff Tony Spurlock said.
The four injured officers are in stable condition, Spurlock told reporters. Deputy Zackari Parrish, 29, was killed.
Residents in the area were ordered to shelter in place.
Three patients with non-critical injuries were treated and released from Sky Ridge Medical Center in Lone Tree, Colorado, according to hospital spokeswoman Linda Watson.
A motorcade accompanied the fallen officer from a hospital in nearby Littleton.
The incident happened shortly after 5 a.m. at the Copper Canyon Apartments in Highlands Ranch, about 20 miles south of Denver.
“Any citizens in the affected area are instructed to shelter in place, avoid windows and stay away from exterior walls,” the sheriff’s office tweeted. An emergency shelter has also been set up for those displaced by the massive police response.
Steven Silknitter, a resident of the Copper Canyon apartment complex, said he rushed home to check on his fiancee after hearing of the shooting and arrived to hear a “barrage of gunfire exchange.”
The area was blocked off, and Silknitter said he saw at least 20 police vehicles.
“I was deathly afraid that I was going to go home and she’d be gone… I didn’t know what I was going to find,” he told CNN affiliate KMGH.
“It’s the last thing I would have thought of at my complex,” he said. “It’s like something out of a movie.”
President Trump tweeted his “deepest condolences to the victims of the terrible shooting in Douglas County … and their families.”
The four injured officers are Mike Doyle, 28, Taylor Davis, 30, Jeffrey Pelle, 32, of the Douglas County Sheriff’s Department, and Tom O’Donnell, 31, a police officer with the Castle Rock Police Department.