AURORA, Colo. — An Aurora Police officer who resigned from the department after he was accused of punching a disabled woman while off-duty is accused of lying about the circumstances of a shooting that occurred while he was on duty late last year.
Douglas Harroun was charged last week with two counts of assault with a deadly weapon related to the Dec. 31 shooting in the 1200 block of North Chambers Road in Aurora. Both charges are felonies.
Harroun and another officer both responded to the area after a woman called police claiming her significant other was intoxicated and had pushed her and smashed her phone, according to an arrest affidavit. She told dispatchers she was not injured and that no weapons were involved.
She also told police that the suspect only spoke Spanish.
When the first two officers went inside the home, they learned the suspect was in the basement with several of his friends. The other officer, who spoke Spanish fluently, asked the suspect to come upstairs, but he refused, and additional backup was called to respond.
Both officers descended the stairs with their weapons drawn and ordered everyone to show their hands, the affidavit says.
The suspect, who was on a couch, put his hands up, and the other men in the room moved out of the way and put their hands above their heads. At that time, Harroun and the other officer holstered their weapons and Harroun moved to take the suspect into custody, according to the affidavit.
Once handcuffed, Harroun attempted to get the suspect to come upstairs out of the basement, but he resisted, the affidavit says.
The two got into a physical altercation on the stairs, during which Harroun admitted that he hit the suspect in the face. Harroun's body-worn camera was dislodged during the struggle. The other officer called for a supervisor because he said he considered the struggle to be a use-of-force incident.
The backup officer, Eduardo Landeros – who is separately charged with vehicular homicide for a March 4 fatal crash – arrived and positioned himself at the top of the stairs between the victim and Harroun. His body-worn camera captured a voice, believed to be Harroun saying, "Sir, get back."
"Get back," was said a second time, and as it was said, according to the affidavit, Harroun unholstered his weapon and fired a single shot that struck the man in his right ankle. Just after the gunshot, Harroun was heard saying, " Fu****ing rushed up."
Body-worn camera footage from Landeros showed a person at the bottom of the stairs with his left hand in or near his pocket, the affidavit says. His right hand was visible and no weapon was seen, according to the document.
It appeared, according to the video, that the man was walking toward the stairs in a "non-aggressive" manner. According to the affidavit, he took two additional steps toward the stairs as the "get back" commands were issued.
When interviewed, Landeros said he didn't see any weapons and never got out his gun or Taser during the incident.
Harroun was later interviewed and said that while trying to get the suspect up the stairs, he started to feel something on his left side, which was the initial victim "screaming and hitting him," the affidavit says.
He said while dealing with the "assault" from the woman, he noticed his fellow officer was positioned on the stairs with his gun "completely exposed" to those below. He said he feared that the man at the bottom of the stairs might grab the other officer's gun or catch him by his belt and drag him down the stairs, the affidavit says.
He reported that he then saw another man at the bottom of the stairs and yelled, "get the expletive back," the affidavit says. He said he feared that the man at the bottom of the stairs might grab the other officer's gun or catch him by his belt and drag him down the stairs, the affidavit says.
He said there was no time for "sweet talk" because he was being assaulted by the woman.
Harroun said his optioned were "limited" and he couldn't use his Taser because he was fending the woman off with his left hand, according to the affidavit.
He went on to say, "When I took the shot, I actually leaned over as I'm pushing that lady away," the affidavit says.
Harroun said he purposefully aimed for the man's leg to stop him from coming up the stairs.
A review of body-worn camera footage from the three officers at the scene showed that the woman was not assaulting Harroun at the time of the shooting as he had stated.
The video showed that another officer was standing between the woman and Harroun at the time of the shooting. The investigator who reviewed the footage said he did not observe "any aggressive posturing" or movements that would justify using deadly force.
APD said in a statement that the findings from the Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) investigation will be part of the Internal Affairs (IA) case which is still ongoing. Once IA has completed its investigation, they will present the case to Chief Art Acevedo for review and disposition.
Harroun resigned Jan. 30 after he was arrested for a Jan. 11 incident in the parking lot of the Caliber at Cornerstar Apartments on Briarwood Circle in Aurora.
According to an arrest affidavit for that case, Harroun and his wife were driving back to their apartment, and the victim, a 49-year-old woman, was walking her dog in the middle of the road as they approached their parking garage.
Harroun saw that the victim's dog was not on a leash and had to drive slowly behind the two because they were in the middle of the road, the affidavit says. At one point, the victim stopped walking and turned around to yell at Harroun for following her. The three got into an argument, and Harroun and his wife got out of their car, the affidavit says.
The affidavit says witnesses saw Harroun punch the victim in the face. She fell to the ground, and Harroun got on top of her and punched her in the head four or five more times.
The victim went to the hospital with injuries that police said were consistent with what witnesses described.
The affidavit says that during the argument, the victim mentioned she is disabled. Police said she has a chronic neurological condition that affects the left side of her body.
Harroun is due in court June 21 related to the assault of the disabled woman. He's charged with three counts of assault and one count of attempt to influence a public servant related to that incident.
Last month, the victim of the alleged assault filed a lawsuit related to the incident.
Landeros, who responded as a backup officer to the December incident, is charged with vehicular homicide for a March 4 fatal crash that happened while he was on duty and responding to a call.
At the time of the crash, Landeros, 26, was headed north on South Chambers Road in a marked Chevy Tahoe as he responded to a burglary call, which was classified as non-emergent, according to an arrest affidavit from the Colorado State Patrol.
Elias Anderson was headed north on South Chambers Road and made a left turn and was T-boned by Landeros, who was driving without lights or sirens.
Investigators with CSP determined, after viewing Landeros' body-worn camera footage, that he was traveling 100 mph just prior to the crash.
Anderson died as a result of the crash.
Landeros resigned effective April 25 from APD, according to the department. They said the internal affairs investigation is still ongoing.
He's next due in court on July 10.
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