AURORA, Colo. — A supervisor gave Aurora police officers the green light to chase a carjacking suspect based on the seriousness of the crime and other factors, Interim Police Chief Heather Morris said Tuesday.
Sunday’s pursuit lasted less than a minute and covered about four blocks – and it ended when a stolen Jeep Cherokee hit a speed hump and went out of control, smashing into a row of vehicles along Dayton Street just north of 19th Avenue. A man inside a small sport-utility vehicle who was parking in front of his house died in the crash.
The 17-year-old suspected of stealing the Jeep, running from police, and causing the crash is being held on suspicion of second-degree murder, aggravated robbery, and vehicular eluding causing death. A decision on the filing of formal charges is pending with the Adams County District Attorney’s Office. The boy’s name was not released because of his age.
Friends identified the man who died as Oliver Jose Zeledon Gongora, 24, a native of Nicaragua who had been working construction in the Denver area for several years. They have established a fund to help pay for the cost of transporting his body home for burial.
Morris, who has occupied the chief’s office for about eight weeks, said that while an investigation is ongoing, she has seen nothing that suggests the officers involved in the chase violated the department’s pursuit policy.
“There's a lot of factors that we have to take into consideration,” Morris told 9NEWS. “Certainly traffic is one of them. And that would depend on the traffic conditions as they are – regardless of what time of day it is, what day it is.”
Weather conditions and the seriousness of the alleged crime also matter.
This incident began a few minutes after 7 p.m. Sunday in an alley just off Clinton Street and 17th Avenue.
There, Morris said, a man was working on his Jeep Cherokee with a companion. A young man approached. He was armed.
“The victim, the car owner, actually heard – he heard the suspect rack the gun,” she said. “The friend that was on the scene, he saw the suspect pull a gun from his waistband. … They both ran for their lives.”
They jumped into another car and began following the Jeep, calling 911 along the way. A dispatcher told them to stop following the car but alerted police officers in the area.
Nine minutes after the 911 call, an officer saw the Jeep near the intersection of 25th Avenue and Dallas Street and tried to stop the vehicle. The Jeep driver took off.
At that point, a supervisor authorized a pursuit, and that initial officer was joined by two colleagues.
They pursued the stolen Jeep about four blocks before the crash.
“Pursuits are dangerous – they are,” Morris said. “We have to make a continuous assessment.”
She said every situation is different. The facts that might lead to authorization to pursue in one case might not in another.
“Certainly, we're not pursuing people for traffic violations, or lower-level offenses and non-violent crime,” Morris said. “I could give a bunch of examples. But essentially, you know, maybe somebody did commit a violent crime, but maybe it's been several weeks. So that's going to be taken into consideration – as well as the time-distance from whenever the incident happened. Or even a stolen vehicle – if this was a stolen vehicle that had not just occurred, then that might be a different evaluation.”
A critical incident team composed of investigators from multiple agencies is looking into the pursuit and crash.
Morris said that work is important because it will provide an independent review of the actions of the involved officers.
“That being said, I don't have anything that I've seen that would indicate any type of violation of law on the part of the officers – or of policy,” she said.
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