 Well, good afternoon. I'm different police chief Ron Thomas and thank you all for being here today I'm gonna provide an updated briefing will also be releasing some body cam video in relation to an officer involved shooting incident that occurred May 1st in the 2000 block of oneida street During the briefing we will describe how different police officers responded to an incident and tried to peacefully resolve that incident but ultimately felt compelled to use force in order to Protect two people that they believe to be in imminent danger being seriously injured or killed so with that I'll turn it over to commander Matt Clark Thank you. Good afternoon. I'm Matt Clark the commander of the major crimes division for the Denver Police Department Appreciate you being here and giving us an opportunity to provide an overview Related to a police officer involved shooting incident that occurred on Monday, May 1st 2023 around 8 30 p.m. At 2045 North Oneida Street in Northeast Ember This briefing is intended to provide preliminary information based on details We've gathered through interviewing witnesses speaking with the involved officers and analyzing evidence collected from the scene This investigation is in the early stages and there may be information. I do not have at this point Which may limit my ability to answer some questions But to the degree that we are able will answer any questions at the conclusion on Monday, May 1st 2023 around 8 30 p.m. Denver police officers were called to 2045 on Knight of Street on a report of a family disturbance with weapons The 911 call reported that her nephew was inside the residence and was threatening other people inside with a knife The 911 caller told the call taker that her nephew was attempting to stab someone and further reported that he used narcotics earlier Officers arrived to this priority call within three minutes of the call being made When they arrived the officers observed the complainant standing outside of the residence still communicating with the 911 call taker The officers directed her to a location that was away from the residence So it was safe to have a conversation with her and they confirmed the information that she previously could provide it to the call taker Specifically that her nephew was in the residence with two other people and that he was armed with a knife Based upon concerns for the safety of the other occupants in the residence with the armed subject there The officers approached the residence and made entry Unlocking the door using a key that was provided by the complainant Upon opening the door the uniform officers verbally called out to the armed subject and identified themselves as Denver police officers The officers entered the residence and observed a male looking outside of a bedroom door The bedroom door was quickly shut and the officers immediately heard a male yelling. I have hostages This was stated several times The officers did not rush into the room But instead took positions at the end of a hallway as they worked to communicate with the subject and determine the status and condition of the other occupants of the room The officers requested additional patrol officers to respond and directed EMS and fire personnel to stage in the area a Reverse 911 notification was issued to neighboring residents in the immediate area as well For the next 57 minutes Officers communicated with the subject and the two individuals being held hostage from down the hall and through the bedroom door The officers received verbal confirmation directly from the two hostages that they were not physically injured The officers then focused their communication efforts on the subject working to understand the situation and resolve the situation peacefully As the conversation with the subject continued the officers recognized the value of having additional tactical and Negotiation resources at the scene. So the situation was declared to be a barricade The declaration of a barricade situation activates the tactical resources of the metro SWAT team the special operations response team as well as the negotiators for the department's crisis negotiation team Throughout the interaction the subject sounded agitated and was often yelling while speaking at times He appeared to be yelling at the two individuals. He was holding in the room While additional resources were responding to assist one of the department's mental health clinician Co-responders who was assigned to district 2 patrol arrived at the scene The mental health clinician began communicating with the subject from inside the residence at the same location that the officers were The subject indicated he did not want to communicate with the clinician any longer But instead wanted to continue communication with the officers that were previously talking to him Officers resumed the primary communication role with the subject at that point After nearly an hour of negotiation efforts officers recognized a commotion occurring inside the room Specifically, they heard what sounded like a struggle and heard the female repeatedly yelling stop The officers believed the two being held in the room needed immediate assistance and they forced their way into the bedroom by kicking the door open Once inside the officers recognized a violent struggle was occurring on the ground between the subject who was armed with a knife and the male victim The uniformed officers gave verbal commands to drop the knife while advancing towards the subject The officers recognized the male victim was attempting to hold or push the arm of the armed subject away from him to avoid being stabbed The officers described they felt the male victim was in jeopardy of being seriously injured or killed by the subject with a knife At that point two Denver police officers discharged their weapons striking the subject multiple times this stopped the subject's assault of the male Both victims were immediately removed from the room and evaluated by medical personnel The male was trans the male victim was transported to the hospital and was treated for a stab wound to his chest He has since been released from the hospital and is expected to recover paramedics promptly Assessed the subject who was shot by officers and that person was determined to be deceased at the scene The investigation this critical incident is being conducted by the Colorado Bureau of Investigations The Colorado State Patrol the Denver Police Department's homicide unit and the Denver District Attorney's office It's being overseen and monitored by the office of the independent monitor, which is a civilian oversight entity Through the investigation it was determined that a combined total of five rounds were fired by the two Denver police officers Crime scene technicians documented and recovered the knife that the subject possessed and used to assault the male victim During interviews with the two victims it was learned that the male was continuously holding the knife while he was in the room And at times was physically present preventing them from leaving the room Just prior to the officers entering the room Investigators learned that the male victim attempted to disarm the subject who was holding a knife And the struggle ensued over that knife and this appears to be the commotion that the officers heard from down the hall And the events that caused the female to begin yelling stop repeatedly The conflict that led to the initial 9-1-1 call in this incident and subsequent hostage situation appears to have escalated from an allegation Related to a previously unreported assault between the male and female victims a subsequent investigation is being conducted in regards to the Assault allegation to determine if charges are warrant in that case the subject has been identified as 55 year old Frankie Lee Evans Data birth is November 4th of 1967 The officers who discharged their weapons during this incident are Uniformed officers assigned to the patrol division in district two one of the officers is a sergeant who's been with the department since 2013 and the other is a patrol officer who's been with the department since 2019 Neither officer has been involved in a prior police shooting incident Both officers were equipped with body-worn cameras and they had their cameras activated during the incident and the incident was captured on their cameras The individual excuse me the involved officers are currently on a modified duty assignment as they process through the department's reintegration program. I Understand body-worn camera. We've released at this point one of the office involved officers body-worn cameras Portions of that audio were redacted. I'll just Describe that that was for the privacy interests of the victims as well as to protect medical information that was contained within I Can answer any questions or myself as a chief Were the officers who discharged their weapons the same ones that he had asked to communicate with yes, sir He would have been he was the nephew of the male victim and had no familial relation to the female There were prior calls for service the never-policed apartment met with Mr. Evans previously on April 14th on another incident That's correct I know that the residents belong to the 911 caller. I'm not sure of the exact status real briefly I can just put some context and highlight some of the perspectives of the officers as well as What they saw once they entered the room I think it's important to look at a timeline as well as we go through To see exactly how this call transpired in the efforts of the officers throughout so again The call was immediately dispatched as you can tell within three minutes of the call being made our first officers on scene and having Conversations getting information from the complainant there They recognize the situation and the need for medical personnel to stage in the area and that was immediately done a reverse 911 Notification to the area residents for a shelter in place was immediately completed to let them know of the police action in the area The barricade Situation being declared activated our tactical and negotiation resources to respond to the scene The co-responder who was working in the patrol division with along with a district to officer arrived and was an active part of the efforts to safely resolve this and then even once the subject Indicated he wanted to speak with officers the co-responder stayed and continued to provide assistance and direction to the officers to help resolve the incident Approximately now an hour and two minutes after the initial call The officers have been negotiated for nearly 57 minutes They hear the disturbance They feel at that point that they need to go in and rescue the two individuals and that's when the shots are fired Questions on the timeline before I move on This is the perspective this is a crime scene photo looking What the officers would have seen when they came in the residence? This is ultimately you'll see from the next slide where they stand the room is the closed door on the left This is a body screenshot of a body camera from one of the involved officers This is the location where he was communicating and they were Through that door there at the end of the hall when the officers make entry into this room. It's a small room It is there are three individuals there. So there is a Female back here The male is our male offender subject is Towards the wall and then you have our male victim in the red He's got a knife in a downhill He's pointing and trying to push it down while you can see the male appears to be holding his arm up preventing him from stabbing him another screenshot from the same officer's body camera again the knife is a little clear there the victim's arm doesn't have any Clothing or a shirt on it's the plain arm holding the other guy and that again is just another He continues to hold that arm up and prevent that knife from coming down and stabbing him This is a photograph of the knife a crime scene photo that was recovered by the crime scene technicians any other questions Procedure dealing with a subject They do So obviously just interacting part of all of our training encompasses de-escalation tactics techniques Crisis intervention training tactics techniques to to resolve and to communicate with people ultimately The the clinician the co-responder yielded back to the officers because it the the conversation continued to occur between the two so It was determined that was the best course of action at the time And those handoffs can occur based on the report that's been built based on the response of the of the individual that we're interacting with That varies based on the scenario A lot of times involving weapons there They're not the primary responders the officers are but in this scenario the officers felt it was appropriate and that the clinician Could have yielded some assistance to them or offered them assistance in this I don't recall specifically Those two officers are on So following a critical incident the the department has a robust reintegration process that is Officer-centric wellness-based it allows the officer to take a tactical pause to go through a process to To process the trauma the life-threatening trauma the use of deadly physical force It allows the officer and the department to just slowly navigate through a process Of varying scenarios. They'll be reintegrated through shoot Don't shoot scenarios in a virtual environment. They'll do live-fire scenarios the range And just make sure that when they are ready to come back to patrol They are they can transition back smoothly I'm sorry Can you talk more about that so are the the Denver Police Department this is the process I know it's sometimes referred to as administrative leave from other agencies, but the officers are not in a line assignment They're not working in a patrol duty assignment, but we are processing through this reintegration process with our wellness coordinator Currently they don't stagnate or just sit and wait where we're processing them through helping them learn learn and grow They're going through different trainings And so that when the time comes in the department and the officer are ready to return to duty that they can transition smoothly Can you talk at all about obviously this was a situation where when the officers made the decision to fire? There were two other people very very close And one of them was was you know right right next to the man who was ultimately shot Can you just kind of tell me a little bit about that kind of analysis that that was made by the officers kind of I guess trade-off if you will absolutely it's it's as you will watch the video It's very quick. It's chaotic. There's a lot going on. This is a room that they hadn't been in introduced to before so everything is new To them at that point They had to make some very quick analysis and decisions regarding that Who who was the offender and that was based on? What they were seeing the actions of the of the individual one holding seemingly holding a knife to prevent Somebody from being stabbed You'll see from the video that the officers close the distance The screenshot that I give you is from the outside of the room, but they actually enter that room and close the distance And when they feel it's safe They and the there's sufficient separation between the two subjects That's when the officers discharge their weapon. They were very intentional Not only in the direction of fire The trajectory they knew with their rounds they knew their backdrop And they knew they only fired the number of rounds that were needed to stop the threat that the Of the violence of the individual being stabbed Officers in total responded to the scene. I mean between the initial response and then you also mentioned there was a response from metro swat and even EMS and are you able to talk about kind of how many responders were there in total and it was a large chief? I'm not sure if you know I don't know the exact number of officers that were actually on scene. I believe that there were Two officers obviously that engaged in the force I believe that there were another three individuals that were inside the home in very close proximity to where the shots were fired There were a number of other officers on scene Providing perimeter security. I think that our SWAT team had members of our SWAT team had just barely arrived in order to Take over if if that would have been the case. Um, and then again, we were waiting for our Negotiators to arrive as well Can you address What determines when Metro SWAT takes over scene versus allowing the officers on-site certainly, so, you know, so This was identified as a barricade situation and so once a barricade situation is declared And there's a there's a belief that we need some sort of emergency response We will call Those officers that are expert in in doing that kind of response As well as calling our hostage negotiators or our crisis negotiators that are also expert in conducting those actions And then You know the reason why we so we will Maintain that scene until those officers arrive and then they will switch them out just so that we have people that are that are More well-trained and how to and how to respond should the should the need to occur in an emergency Um, and then again also having those those expert hostage negotiators, uh enter the room as well Uh, there's no doubt, you know, I think when you look at the body cam video I think that you will hear and see that this individual had Escalated, you know, I think the officer did a fantastic job Really trying to de-escalate and try to distract the individual And then it became clear to him that they were not effective And they needed to move quickly in order to stop that imminent threat. They did so So there there there was some conversation about trying to get ahold of another family member and the officers were Making those attempts to do so. I think that's why those officers that had that initial contact Kind of remained in contact because they were actually trying to Facilitate some of the demands that this individual had placed Interested to know more as well about the the decision not to go into the room right away Like at the very beginning of the the response in the situation um and to to going later, um is If it looks like it may turn into a barricade situation, is it I guess how is the decision made whether to try and go into their into a room right away or not? Well, I mean to to certain degrees a discretionary decision, but I think that Also based upon their training. I think that they did not want to create a deadly force encounter If they could if they could prevent that and so I think that they initially defaulted to Maintaining positions of cover Keeping themselves safe not trying to escalate the situation trying to de-escalate through voice Which I think they did for a significant period of time That ended up no no longer being successful and then I think that the suspects actions, which could be clearly heard I think Necessitated them, you know escalating and and and then having to use force Thank you