“No,” he answered, with a quiver in his voice.Īfter the first gunshots, three members of the Arvada Police Department’s Community Outreach Resource and Enforcement team huddled around the window in the door of their unmarked office building, about 100 feet away from where Beesley lay. She asked the caller if he was in a safe place. During the call, the dispatcher heard gunshots in the background and screaming, according to a summary of the call. In one call, a man near the So Radish restaurant reported an officer down.
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Troyke, wearing a black shirt and tactical vest, then fired twice more to blast out the windows of nearby Arvada police cars.Īfter Troyke’s shots, 911 calls immediately flooded into the Jefferson County emergency call center. A few of the pellets blasted inside of the businesses, leaving defects on the walls. The shots shattered glass windows of nearby businesses, causing patrons and passersby to flee. as a man police would later identify as Troyke - the very person Beesley had just been trying to find - ran up behind him and ambushed him with a shotgun, firing nine shotgun shells at the officer. Surveillance camera footage shows Beesley strolled casually through the square at 1:35 p.m. While there, Beesley was dispatched to investigate a report of a suspicious person in Olde Town Square, about a mile away. on June 21 to request a welfare check on the Arvada resident, a solitary 59-year-old who earlier that morning had made suicidal comments to family members.Īrvada police Officer Gordon Beesley, a 19-year veteran of the department who spent much of the year working as a school resource officer, arrived at Troyke’s apartment complex shortly afterward with another officer, but they couldn’t find Troyke. Ronald Troyke’s brother called 911 at 12:45 p.m. “I was freaking out.” A police officer comforts a woman during the investigation of an early afternoon shooting in Olde Town Arvada on June 21, 2021. “I was visualizing that Olde Town Square was a bloodbath,” the witness, whose name also was redacted, told police. He fled as the sound of more gunfire echoed in the square. One witness, a guitar teacher, told investigators he heard gunshots and saw Beesley fall. “I thought that I was going to have to either have to use lethal force or I was going to be murdered.” “It was the absolute scariest thing I’ve been a part of in 15 years at this police department,” said one of the first officers on scene, whose name was redacted from the report. Though Arvada police officers did not wear body cameras at the time of the shooting, The Post used the documents, surveillance videos and body camera footage from other responding agencies to piece together the following account of the chaotic scene. The 1,090-page report includes interviews and accounts from dozens of law enforcement officers who responded to the scene as well as descriptions of radio traffic and witness interviews. Johnny Hurley (Photo courtesy of Cody Soules via Denver7) 8 that she would not prosecute the Arvada police officer who shot and killed “good Samaritan” Johnny Hurley offer the most complete picture of the chaos that day and how law enforcement responded.
But records obtained by The Denver Post after First Judicial District Attorney Alexis King announced on Nov. In the five months since the June 21 shootings, police and prosecutors have released information in fits and starts. In the end, three men lay bleeding outside the library: a beloved police officer, a gunman intent on killing as many law enforcement officers as possible, and a nearby shopper with a legally concealed handgun who stepped in and prevented further bloodshed. People in the busy commercial district hid behind dumpsters and in restaurant attics.
Diners sitting outside restaurants in the Colorado sunshine heard shotgun pellets whiz by their ears. In less than two minutes, the scene turned from a pleasant summer day in suburbia to a cacophony of screams and sirens. Officer Gordon Beesley (Photo courtesy Arvada Police Department)
Twenty gunshots exploded in Olde Town Arvada one Monday afternoon last June, shattering windows, killing three and undermining the sense of safety previously held by those who live and work nearby.