ARVADA, Colo — A jury on Thursday found Sonny Almanza guilty of murder and other charges in the 2022 shooting death of Arvada Police Officer Dillon Vakoff.
Almanza was found guilty on all counts, including murder, attempted murder, assault and trespassing, in the Sept. 11, 2022 shooting. He is set to be sentenced on Dec. 14.
Vakoff and another officer had responded to a family disturbance on West 51st Avenue near the intersection with Marshall Street in Arvada. He and another officer tried to break up a fight between family members. Investigators said the fight started as a custody dispute between Almanza and the mother of his two children.
Almanza was also accused of shooting a woman in the leg during the same incident.
As the trial entered its sixth day in Jefferson County District Court Wednesday, Almanza took the stand and claimed self-defense. He testified that he fired one shot into the air in an attempt to stop the fight and then fired a shot toward a woman who was running toward him. That woman suffered a gunshot injury.
Almanza also testified that he fired shots toward Vakoff, but claimed he thought Vakoff was another man, named Jerry Lopez, who was part of the conflict.
"Dillon went here that night to help, he went there during a civil dispute to try and keep the peace. An evil act was brought and he was killed. So I was just glad justice was brought," said Arvada Police Chief Ed Brady.
Chief Brady said this verdict won't bring Vakoff back but it will help his family and the department to heal.
"He's not just a uniform, he's a person, he's a friend, a coworker that we all loved to be around. He had a wonderful smile and we will just miss him immensely," Chief Brady said.
Walking out of the courtroom, Almanza's cousin Shantell Swan said their family is heartbroken by the verdict.
"I died inside with him," Swan said. "His mom is devastated. This is hard for our family but we're a family and we're going to stick together and we're going to be there with him. And this was not fair, like I said, he doesn't deserve this."
Swan said her cousin told the truth on the stand about what happened last September but stressed that key evidence that would have cleared Almanza wasn't let into the trial.
She and her family feel this wasn't a fair trial from start to finish.
"There's not one minority in that jury? All white people out of 400 people, there was Black, there was Hispanics, how come there was not one Black person, one Hispanic person there? He did not get a fair trial," Swan said.
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