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Tag: jefferson county sheriff

  • Evergreen shooter shot up equipment, was a patient at primary care office, sheriff’s office says

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    A 62-year-old man who opened fire inside a primary care doctor’s office in Evergreen on Thursday night before taking his own life was previously a patient at the facility, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

    Investigators identified Lance Black, an Evergreen resident, as the person who fired a shotgun 19 times inside the CommonSpirit Primary Care office at 32214 Ellingwood Trail.

    Deputies began responding to calls about gunshots in the medical office at 4:23 p.m. Thursday and arrived on scene at 4:28 p.m., where they found broken windows, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Friday afternoon.

    Deputies entered the building and found Black, armed with a shotgun, the sheriff’s office said. They tried to de-escalate the situation, but Black fatally shot himself.

    Investigators found that Black shot at doors, walls, computers and other equipment during the shooting. No one was injured and no other businesses were damaged, other than a single round that entered a vacant office.

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  • ‘No known victims’ after shooter reported dead in Evergreen, Jeffco sheriff says

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    Jefferson County law enforcement is responding to an “active shooter incident” in north Evergreen and said the shooter is down after shooting themselves, sheriff’s officials said.

    Officials said on social media that there were no known victims as of 5:25 p.m. The shooter was found dead at the scene, sheriff’s office spokesperson Jacki Kelley told Denver7.

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    Katie Langford

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  • Plainview fire in Arvada burns 130 acres near Coal Creek Canyon

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    A grass fire at the entrance of Coal Creek Canyon in Arvada burned more than 100 acres, prompted pre-evacuation warnings and closed two state highways on Saturday.

    The Candelas neighborhood was under a pre-evacuation warning for several hours after the Plainview fire sparked near Colorado 93 and Colorado 72 at 8:35 am., Arvada Fire Rescue spokesperson Brady Johnson said.

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  • Evergreen High School shooter used family heirloom gun; parents won’t be charged

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    The gun used by the 16-year-old boy who shot two students and then himself at Evergreen High School in September was a family heirloom, investigators with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office announced Wednesday.

    The Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver that Desmond Holly used in the Sept. 10 attack originally belonged to one of Desmond’s grandparents, the sheriff’s office found, and was kept in a safe in the family’s home.

    Desmond’s parents will not be criminally charged in connection with the storage of the gun or their son’s access to it, the sheriff’s office concluded.

    Through an attorney, the boy’s parents told investigators on Jan. 23 that the revolver was “rarely seen or used and stored out of sight near the back of a large, locked gun safe,” and that their son “did not have access to the safe, except for brief moments when it was opened by his father,” according to a news release announcing the completion of the investigation.

    Douglas Richards, the attorney representing the Evergreen High shooter’s parents, told The Denver Post on Wednesday that he believes Desmond slipped the revolver out of the safe while he was with his father.

    “I believe what happened is Desmond and his father were cleaning some of the family firearms, and in a moment when his father was not looking, Desmond took a firearm from the back of the safe that was an heirloom and had not been used by the family, ever,” Richards said. “Because the firearm was never used and was not stored with other firearms in the safe, its disappearance was not noticed until after the tragedy.”

    The parents’ DNA was not found on the weapon, which was originally purchased in Florida in 1966.

    Richards called the decision not to charge the parents “correct.”

    The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office acknowledged, in its announcement, “that this was not the outcome many in our community hoped for.”

    An email sent to Evergreen High families Wednesday, alerting them to the sheriff’s completed investigation, said victim advocates would be on campus Thursday alongside the school’s mental health and counseling teams.

    Sheriff’s officials noted in their news release that investigators were “unable to speak with” Desmond’s parents and implied the family was uncooperative during the probe into the revolver’s origins.

    But Richards said Desmond’s parents spoke with investigators at the hospital as their son was dying and answered written questions and follow-up questions from investigators. Richards said he also offered to sit down with investigators to explain how the gun was stored.

    “I have… explained from the outset that the firearm in this case was stolen without the knowledge of Desmond’s parents,” Richards said. “…We have cooperated at every single turn, and it was only earlier this (year) that on my own I decided to just send the DA’s office a letter explaining what occurred, which obviously satisfied them that what we had been saying all along was true — that this was a terrible tragedy that was not foreseeable by anyone in Desmond’s family.”

    Desmond died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at the end of his attack on the high school.

    He roamed the halls for about nine minutes and shot in several areas before leaving the building. Desmond wounded a 14-year-old boy who was not publicly identified and 18-year-old Matthew Silverstone; both were seriously injured but survived. Video of the attack shows that Desmond physically grappled with Silverstone before shooting him.

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  • 1 hospitalized after Tuesday morning house fire near Littleton

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    One person has been hospitalized after a Littleton-area house fire on Tuesday morning, according to South Metro Fire Rescue.

    South Metro Fire Rescue and the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office are responding to the fire at 7980 Kendall Blvd.

    Firefighters deemed the blaze a second-alarm fire that involved a camper trailer parked between two homes. The fire extended to homes on either side of the camper, officials said.

    Video provided by South Metro Fire Rescue showed smoke billowing out of a charred, melted camper trailer with firefighters dousing the flames.

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  • Judge rejects reduced prison sentence for participant in Colorado rock-throwing attack

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    Alexa Bartell (Provided by Jefferson County Sheriff’s Department)

    A Jefferson County judge refused to reduce the prison sentence for one of the men convicted in the killing of 20-year-old Alexa Bartell during a spree of rock-throwing attacks more than two years ago.

    Nicholas “Mitch” Karol-Chik, 21, was sentenced in May to 45 years in prison for Bartell’s death. She was killed in April 2023 when Karol-Chik and two other teenagers threw a 9.3-pound rock through her windshield as she drove on Indiana Street near the Rocky Flats National Wildlife Refuge. The rock struck Bartell in the head.

    In September, Karol-Chik sought to knock 10 years off his sentence through a post-sentencing review, citing his good behavior in prison. He noted that he’d applied for a 10-year prison education program through which he expects to receive a bachelor’s degree in Christian studies and then work in chaplains’ offices across the prison system.

    First Judicial District Court Judge Christopher Zenisek, who presided over Karol-Chik’s case and imposed the original 45-year prison sentence, opted against holding a hearing to listen to arguments about sentence reduction and instead denied Karol-Chik’s request in a brief Oct. 8 order.

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  • FBI was working to identify Evergreen High School shooter at time of attack, sheriff says

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    The FBI was working to identify the person behind the Evergreen High School shooter’s social media accounts through search warrants when the attack happened, the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Friday.

    Sheriff’s officials released a lengthy statement Friday afternoon addressing “rumors” being circulated about the Sept. 10 school shooting that seriously injured two students.

    The families of victims Matthew Silverstone, 18, and a 14-year-old boy who has not been publicly identified previously said the teens confronted the shooter and tried to alert their classmates before they were shot.

    The shooter, 16-year-old Desmond Holly, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    In the wake of the shooting, FBI officials said the agency began investigating accounts later linked to Holly but did not identify him or take any further action before the attack.

    “During the assessment investigation, the identity of the account user remained unknown, and thus there was no probable cause for arrest or additional law enforcement action at the federal level,” FBI officials said in September.

    But that was not the whole picture, according to the sheriff’s office.

    The FBI’s New York office was in the process of obtaining and sending search warrants to social media companies for information about Holly’s accounts when the shooting happened, sheriff’s officials said Friday.

    “By law, these companies have up to 35 days to respond to each warrant, and typically two or three warrants are needed to determine who made a post and from where,” Jefferson County officials wrote. “That process was still underway when the shooting occurred. The FBI did not fail to act; this delay is a limitation of the current legal system.”

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    Katie Langford

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  • 14-year-old shot at Evergreen High School is released from hospital

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    One of the two students injured in last month’s shooting at Evergreen High School was discharged Tuesday, hospital officials said.

    The 14-year-old boy, who has not been publicly identified, left Children’s Hospital Colorado’s Aurora campus in good condition “to continue his recovery journey,” hospital spokesperson Blayke Roznowski said in an email on Thursday morning.

    “Good” condition means the patient’s vital signs are stable and the patient is conscious and comfortable, according to the hospital, which uses condition descriptions approved by the American Hospital Association.

    The 14-year-old was shot at close range after confronting the shooter during the Sept. 10 attack, his family wrote in a public statement.

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  • Parent groups raised concerns about resource officers before Evergreen High School shooting

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    Two Evergreen High School parent groups raised concerns about the availability of school resource officers in the hours before Wednesday’s shooting that critically wounded two high school students, parents said Friday.

    At a Tuesday night meeting of the Evergreen High School Parent Teacher Student Association, a parent questioned why Evergreen High didn’t have a new school resource officer to replace its previous officer, who had been away on medical leave for nearly a year. The school’s principal explained that Jeffco Public Schools had “deprioritized” SROs for its mountain schools, which would share officers between them, said Cindy Mazeika, the PTSA’s president.

    One parent asked explicitly what would happen if there were a shooting at the school.

    “We as parents didn’t know about this until somebody asked about it on the open floor at the end of the PTA meeting on Tuesday night,” Mazieka said.

    Jacki Kelley, spokeswoman for the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, told reporters Thursday that a school resource officer was not at the school when 16-year-old Desmond Holly started firing his gun, critically wounding two students before he fatally shot himself. Deputies arrived on the scene minutes after the shooting began, Kelley said.

    The school’s full-time deputy was on medical leave, Kelley said, and the gap has been filled by several part-time officers. The deputy assigned to the school that morning was dispatched to a nearby accident, which Kelley said was routine and did not violate departmental policy.

    In an email Friday, spokespeople for the school district did not directly respond to questions about the parent groups’ concerns. The district wrote that an SRO was assigned to the high school, but it directed other questions to the sheriff’s office, including how assignment decisions are made.

    Spokespeople for the sheriff’s office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Friday afternoon.

    In the district’s contract with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, the agency agreed to provide school resource officers to a dozen county schools, including Evergreen High, “as staffing allows.” The district has contracts with various cities to provide SROs at its other schools.

    The parents’ concerns come as the district adjusts to directly paying for the officers. In April, the district learned that it would have to begin paying for 50% of the cost for the officers during the 2025-2026 school year, according to an April budget presentation. That meant an additional $2.2 million in district funding, which was provided in the budget.

    In its statement, the district said its SRO program “is a point of pride for our district, and we remain committed to sustaining it.” In survey data presented to the Jeffco school board in June, a majority of families, staff and students reported feeling safe at the district’s schools.

    On Wednesday morning, shortly before the shooting began at the high school, Evergreen Middle School parents also raised concerns about SRO staffing, said Sarah Aller, the head of that school’s PTA. In lieu of an SRO, staff at the middle school purchased new walkie-talkies for school personnel to communicate, Aller said. The PTA used $12,000 of its own funds to cover the purchase.

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    Seth Klamann

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  • Classes canceled at Jefferson County schools after Evergreen High School shooting

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    Classes were canceled for the rest of the week at Evergreen High School after a shooting shook the school on Wednesday, leaving two students hospitalized and the suspected assailant dead.

    “Our hearts are broken with grief by the tragedy at our school earlier today,” Evergreen officials said in a Wednesday night community bulletin announcing the canceled classes.

    It’s currently unknown when students will be able to re-enter the high school to retrieve their personal belongings, school officials said.

    Another eight Jefferson County schools were closed Thursday in the Conifer and Evergreen articulation areas, according to Jefferson County Public Schools.

    Closures include Evergreen Middle School, Wilmot Elementary, Parmalee Elementary, Conifer High School, West Jefferson Middle School, Elk Creek Elementary, Marshdale Elementary and West Jefferson Elementary.

    Three students were shot at Evergreen High School just before 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday, law enforcement officials said. As of that night, one had died and one remained in critical condition, hospital spokesperson Lindsay Foster said.

    The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the student who died was the suspected shooter, but did not release the teen’s name. The suspect died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

    The second victim was stable Wednesday night and transferred out of the hospital to a different facility, Dr. Brian Blackwood, the trauma program medical director at CommonSpirit St. Anthony Hospital, said in a Thursday morning news briefing.

    The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office victim services unit plans to operate a resource and information center at the old location of Bergen Meadow Elementary on Thursday and Friday, according to the agency.

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    Lauren Penington

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  • Authorities say a student is dead after shooting 2 peers and then himself at Colorado high school

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    A student shot two of his peers Wednesday at a suburban Denver high school before shooting himself and later dying, authorities said.The handgun shooting was reported around 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, about 30 miles west of Denver in the Rocky Mountain foothills.Shots were fired both inside and outside the school building, and law enforcement officers who responded found the shooter within five minutes of arriving, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley said.None of the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting fired any shots, Kelley said.More than 100 police officers from the surrounding area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said. A 1999 school shooting at Jefferson County’s Columbine High killed 14 people, including a woman who died earlier this year of complications from her injuries in the shooting.The teens were originally listed in critical condition, St. Anthony Hospital CEO Kevin Cullinan said. Their ages were not released.By early evening, one teen was in stable condition with what Dr. Brian Blackwood, the hospital’s trauma director, described as non-life threatening injuries. He declined to provide more details.The high school with more than 900 students is largely surrounded by forest. It is about a mile from the center of Evergreen, which has a population of 9,300 people.After the shooting, parents gathered outside a nearby elementary school waiting to reunite with their children.Wendy Nueman said her 15-year-old daughter, a sophomore at Evergreen High School, didn’t answer her phone right away after the shooting, The Denver Post reported. When her daughter finally called back, it was from a borrowed phone.“She just said she was OK. She couldn’t hardly speak,” Nueman said, holding back tears. She gathered that her daughter ran from the school.“It’s super scary,” she said. “We feel like we live in a little bubble here. Obviously, no one is immune.”Eighteen students who fled from the shooting took shelter at a home just down the road, after an initial group of them pounded on the door asking for help, resident Don Cygan told Denver’s KUSA-TV. One student said he heard gunshots while in the school’s cafeteria and ran out of the school, Cygan said.Cygan, a retired educator familiar with lockdown trainings to prepare for possible shootings, said he took down the names of all the students and the names of the parents who later arrived there to pick them up. His wife, a retired nurse, was able to calm the teens down and treat them for shock, he said.“I hope they feel like they ran to the right house,” he said._____Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

    DENVER —

    A student shot two of his peers Wednesday at a suburban Denver high school before shooting himself and later dying, authorities said.

    The handgun shooting was reported around 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado, about 30 miles west of Denver in the Rocky Mountain foothills.

    Shots were fired both inside and outside the school building, and law enforcement officers who responded found the shooter within five minutes of arriving, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley said.

    None of the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting fired any shots, Kelley said.

    More than 100 police officers from the surrounding area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said. A 1999 school shooting at Jefferson County’s Columbine High killed 14 people, including a woman who died earlier this year of complications from her injuries in the shooting.

    The teens were originally listed in critical condition, St. Anthony Hospital CEO Kevin Cullinan said. Their ages were not released.

    By early evening, one teen was in stable condition with what Dr. Brian Blackwood, the hospital’s trauma director, described as non-life threatening injuries. He declined to provide more details.

    The high school with more than 900 students is largely surrounded by forest. It is about a mile from the center of Evergreen, which has a population of 9,300 people.

    After the shooting, parents gathered outside a nearby elementary school waiting to reunite with their children.

    Wendy Nueman said her 15-year-old daughter, a sophomore at Evergreen High School, didn’t answer her phone right away after the shooting, The Denver Post reported. When her daughter finally called back, it was from a borrowed phone.

    “She just said she was OK. She couldn’t hardly speak,” Nueman said, holding back tears. She gathered that her daughter ran from the school.

    “It’s super scary,” she said. “We feel like we live in a little bubble here. Obviously, no one is immune.”

    Eighteen students who fled from the shooting took shelter at a home just down the road, after an initial group of them pounded on the door asking for help, resident Don Cygan told Denver’s KUSA-TV. One student said he heard gunshots while in the school’s cafeteria and ran out of the school, Cygan said.

    Cygan, a retired educator familiar with lockdown trainings to prepare for possible shootings, said he took down the names of all the students and the names of the parents who later arrived there to pick them up. His wife, a retired nurse, was able to calm the teens down and treat them for shock, he said.

    “I hope they feel like they ran to the right house,” he said.

    _____

    Brown reported from Billings, Montana.

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  • 3 teenagers critically wounded after shooting at Denver-area high school, officials say

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    Three teens were critically wounded in a shooting at a suburban Denver high school, including the suspected shooter, on Wednesday, authorities said.The shooting was reported around 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, about 30 miles west of Denver, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley said.It is not clear what led up to the shooting or how the suspected shooter, believed to be a student at the school, was shot. None of the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting is believed to have fired any shots, Kelley said.The shooting happened on school grounds but it wasn’t immediately known whether it was inside the school building, she said.All three teens taken to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, Colorado, were shot, CEO Kevin Cullinan said.Over 100 police officers from around the Denver area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said. The sheriff’s office is the same agency that responded to the school shooting at the 1999 Columbine High School shooting that killed 14 people, including a woman who died earlier this year of complications from her injuries in the shooting.”This is the scariest thing that could ever happen, and these parents were really frightened, and so were the kids,” Kelley said. “And I know we say ‘never again,’ and here we are.”FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the FBI is on scene and “in full support of local authorities.”

    DENVER —

    Three teens were critically wounded in a shooting at a suburban Denver high school, including the suspected shooter, on Wednesday, authorities said.

    The shooting was reported around 12:30 p.m. at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, about 30 miles west of Denver, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Jacki Kelley said.

    It is not clear what led up to the shooting or how the suspected shooter, believed to be a student at the school, was shot. None of the law enforcement officers who responded to the shooting is believed to have fired any shots, Kelley said.

    The shooting happened on school grounds but it wasn’t immediately known whether it was inside the school building, she said.

    All three teens taken to St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, Colorado, were shot, CEO Kevin Cullinan said.

    Over 100 police officers from around the Denver area rushed to the school to try to help, Kelley said. The sheriff’s office is the same agency that responded to the school shooting at the 1999 Columbine High School shooting that killed 14 people, including a woman who died earlier this year of complications from her injuries in the shooting.

    “This is the scariest thing that could ever happen, and these parents were really frightened, and so were the kids,” Kelley said. “And I know we say ‘never again,’ and here we are.”

    FBI Director Kash Patel said on X that the FBI is on scene and “in full support of local authorities.”

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  • Woman dies in custody at Jeffco jail

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    A woman died after she was found unresponsive in her cell at the Jefferson County Detention Facility early Wednesday morning, according to the sheriff’s office.

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    Katie Langford

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  • Jefferson County sheriff K-9 bites child, father after escaping yard

    Jefferson County sheriff K-9 bites child, father after escaping yard

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    A Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office K-9 bit a child and the child’s father after escaping from his handler’s backyard in Castle Rock on Sunday.

    Around 4 p.m. Sunday, the dog escaped its outdoor enclosure at his handler’s home in Castle Rock and jumped over a 5-foot fence separating the backyard from a neighboring yard.

    The dog bit a child and the child’s father who tried to intervene, the sheriff’s office said in a news release Wednesday. The handler “gained control” of the dog after realizing he had escaped.

    Both the child and his father were treated at a hospital and are recovering at home, according to the sheriff’s office.

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    Katie Langford

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