 So my name is Melissa Taylor, M-E-L-I-S-S-A, last name Taylor, T-A-Y-L-O-R, Denver Fire Department, P-I-O, and Firefighter. So just before we begin, I just want to make clear Chief Tave is going to give a statement kind of about his care, ongoing prognosis, things of that nature. He won't be able to speak to anything regarding the ongoing investigation that's being conducted by DPD. We do have representatives from the Denver Police Department here who can answer those questions after the press conference as they are able to. So with that, I'll turn it over to Fire Chief Tave. Good afternoon. First off, I want to say thank you to all of our first responders in the City and County Denver, all of our partners, especially Denver Police Department, Denver Health Paramedics, and the crew here at Station One provided excellent care. I feel very fortunate to be in a city where we get really quality, timely emergency services. I also wanted to thank all the doctors and nurses at Denver Health Medical Center. They did a tremendous job in taking care of me. For that, I wanted to say thank you, thank you to all the citizens that have expressed their concern and sent their wishes of a speedy recovery. And as most of you already know, yesterday I did receive several stab wounds, one to my right leg, and then my right hand received several deep lacerations requiring some tendon repair and two of my fingers. And so that was performed at Denver Health yesterday and I'll be receiving follow-up care. I did return back to work today and have a prognosis of a full recovery. Yeah, Chief. I mean, you're right outside of the station. You're talking about that. So, very fortunate I just came down to my car here which just parked right outside the front of the station here and wasn't 20 feet from my parking spot, which happens to be right in front of Station One. So, immediately had a rapid response from all agencies from not only the fire department was right here, but Denver Police was on scene in what literally seemed like seconds. Denver Health was here. And again, I think that's the fortunate part of being in downtown Denver and being where we have such a high degree of emergency services. I think the fire department paramedics who were here at Station One were surprised to see their chief walk-in like that. I think it caught everybody off guard a little bit. Surprised me too. Yeah, I guess I can't walk through the actual steps of it. You're talking about the year-on-the-month response to emergencies? It helps other people outside yesterday? It was very unusual. It was a very surreal experience without getting into Denver Police's investigation. Probably the scariest thing was being trapped or being restrained while it was going on. Can you talk about what you were doing before all this stuff happened? What were you doing? I just came down to my car, pulled out. You can see I Park right there and pulled up to the light and was on making a phone call to our division chief of fire prevention. We were working through a fire prevention issue. The last thing I remember telling him was, hold on and then obviously that's when the stabbing occurred and so he got to listen to it all on the phone. I was pulled out. We were resolving a fire prevention issue and then eventually I was going to actually go and pick my kids up from school, which ironically they happened to be traveling by on a school field trip from the state Supreme Court trip. So they actually drove through the intersection immediately following the incident and seen all the firefighters come out from the station. Well fortunately they didn't know that and then when we got home we were like, we've seen it. Of course your first reaction is, no you didn't. And then all the teachers and stuff were like, yeah we did, about 1.30. And I'm like, well maybe you did. So kind of ironic. Completely off-guard. I'm in my car and the next thing I know, I have somebody sitting there stabbing me essentially and I know these guys are going to yell at me if I go too much. We haven't had any issues. Obviously there's some homeless people in the area but we have never had any issues. We haven't had any run-ins. There's been no violence whatsoever. As far as that individual, the first time I'd ever seen her, she's never, to the best of my knowledge, ever been around here or had any incidents here. I guess a good work ethic. I had several meetings that were planned for today and I made sure I was there and as long as I'm able to come to work, I come to work. That is correct. So fortunately it's not uncommon for me to be on TV so not quite all the same rules apply but I did go down and give the crews a station 1 with some money to buy dessert. So right now it feels reasonably okay. What they had to do is go in and put some sutures in the tendons themselves. I'm not sure exact numbers of that and then they had to close up both of the fingers and they closed up a wound in my leg. They put like a half cast or partial splint on there that will remain on there until I see the hand surgeon which I'm scheduled to do tomorrow. Everything as of now looks like I will be. I have good sensation in both of those fingers and I have the ability to move them so probability looks good. I mean no certainty but. The doors automatically lock. Sometimes they don't lock until you reach a certain speed, that type of thing. I don't even know if you even thought about locking doors beforehand. What happens now? So I hadn't really ever thought about it in the past because my vehicle as you accelerate does lock but you have to reach up a speed somewhere around 15 miles per hour and you can turn around and see the very short distance. I'm not sure I reached one mile per hour. I don't know yet because without all the details of everything it's hard to say what it is. Other than the fact that it might be more likely to just lock the car manually on my own because I just never know but still completely unexpected. As of right now I believe it's fairly randomness so I'm not sure that there's any direct targeting or anything like that. We're going to go ahead and wrap it up. Thank you guys so much. Thank you. Good afternoon. Yeah, go ahead. So we have a few more answers today. The investigation actually continued into today and is still open. What we've learned through that investigation is that at this time it doesn't appear that there's any prior connection between the suspect and the victim. That the victim wasn't targeted, was not apparently targeted for reasons of him being a fire chief or a public safety official. And it looks really to be a random incident at this point, right? Yeah, it appears that as he was stopped at the traffic light the female suspect entered the passenger side front seat of the vehicle and began stabbing the victim. Did he try to? I mean he got stabbed in his hand. It seems like he was trying to stop that. Yeah, honestly I would be speculating to address that question. So I mean just based on statements that investigators have received through the course of the investigation. I can't elaborate on what those statements are, give you any more detail because this case still needs to be adjudicated and we don't want to jeopardize the integrity of that. Any idea where she came from? I don't know. I don't know that. Did she say any? That's a level of detail I personally don't know and it being a, you know, that would be evidence in the case and again I don't want to jeopardize the adjudication of this case by releasing those kind of details. We don't believe at this time that there's a connection between those, I believe there were criminal mischief cases and this particular incident here. That I don't know. That I don't know. Are you working on your own or just by yourself or actually not connected with any other? I don't believe there are any other suspects or persons of interest in this particular incident. So let me restate one thing because I know that this is an important part. You know, motive has been a big question among folks and you know at this time it does not appear that Chief Tate was targeted because he is a fire chief or a public safety official.