There may have been a few reasons to want to see this man locked up. Apparently there was a warrant out for his arrest and reports indicate it was for possession of child pornography.
But here the cop turns judge, jury and executioner. After a few minutes of standoff, and AFTER the victim pocketed his weapon and turns to run away, the cop shoots him in the back with his rifle.
This is not righteous. Even if the guy was a scumbag. Even if he’d been wasting their time or previously threatening these officers. Their training should have stopped them from making a kill shot while he was jogging away. The cop could not demonstrate he had a “reasonable fear of imminent, serious bodily injury or death.” Colorado gives the police a greater degree of flexibility in these kinds of shootings as their legal standard is looser.
The Rifle shooting remains under investigation by the Ninth Judicial District Attorney’s Office, the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office and the Rifle Police Department. More in the Denver Post.