AURORA, Colo — Two Aurora police officers were justified in fatally shooting a man wielding a knife on a Regional Transportation District bus in October, 17th Judicial District Attorney Brian Mason said.
Alexander Collins, 35, was killed in the shooting on a #15 bus near the intersection of Colfax Avenue and Moline Street on Oct. 2. Four officers were involved, according to the district attorney's decision letter. Two of them fired shots from outside the bus, one deployed a taser and one released his K9.
The district attorney found all four were justified in using physical force against Collins -- and called their actions "heroic."
According to the letter, Collins was in a housing program that offers mental health and substance abuse treatment as an alternative to jail or prison. Around 4:30 p.m. the day of the shooting, another client of that program called a sheriff's deputy and expressed concern that Collins was acting strange and had stayed up all night drinking alcohol and smoking fentanyl, the letter says. The deputy asked another deputy to check on Collins and put him on a detox hold.
Around 5:30 p.m., the client told the deputy that Collins had left the facility and gone to the bus stop at Colfax and Moline. The client also said that Collins had a "butcher knife" in his pocket, the letter says. The deputy found Collins at the bus stop, but did not engage because he was in plain clothes and didn't have any armor or communications device, the letter says.
Collins then walked across Colfax and entered the Moline Corner Store, where he demanded cigarettes from the clerk, according to the letter. He took the cigarettes and walked out without paying for them, the letter says.
Collins then went to the bus stop on the northwest corner of Colfax and Moline and got on the westbound bus without paying the fare, according to the letter. The driver tried to confront him, but he ignored the driver and walked down the aisle to the back of the bus, the letter says. The driver then stopped the bus because he heard sirens and saw emergency vehicles approaching.
Officers then surrounded the bus, according to the letter. Two of them ordered Collins, who still had the knife, to get off the bus, but he refused. The K9 officer then got on the bus and released his dog to take down Collins. The dog bit Collins but did not take him down, according to the letter.
Two of the officers saw Collins holding the knife in his right hand as he advanced toward passengers huddled in the back of the bus, the letter says.
Two officers tried to physically restrain him, and one deployed his taser, according to the letter. The taser was ineffective, and Collins continued to pull away from the officers while still holding the knife.
Two officers who were standing outside the open rear door of the bus then fired shots at Collins, hitting him in the chest and abdomen, according to the letter. He was then taken to the hospital, where he died.
Investigators found that 13 seconds elapsed between the time the first officer tried to restrain Collins and the time shots were fired.
The shooting and events surrounding it were captured by five officers' body-worn cameras, by surveillance cameras inside the bus, and by a city of Aurora surveillance camera mounted on a traffic light. Investigators interviewed witnesses who were on the bus, at the corner store, and at the housing program, according to the letter.
One of the officers who fired shots told investigators that from his vantage point on the curb, he had a direct line of sight of Collins and had a clear backdrop.
The other officer who fired shots also told investigators that he saw an opening where he could shoot the man in the torso without hitting anyone else, so he did.
The officer who used his taser told investigators that he didn't fire his handgun because of the civilians at the back of the bus, the letter says. The officer who deployed his K9 also said that he could not shoot the man because passengers would have been in the backdrop of his gunfire.
"I find the conduct of all four officers to be reasonable, justified and even heroic. Mr. Collins presented a clear threat to the lives of the passengers, including small children, on that bus," Mason wrote in the letter. "He also presented a clear threat to the officers who were seeking to intervene. The officers used verbal commands and other non-lethal means – including a taser – to prevent the armed suspect from harming anyone. These efforts proved futile. The decision to use physical force and then lethal physical force may well have saved innocent lives that day."
The Aurora Police Department said Monday that the two officers who fired shots were put on administrative leave immediately after the shooting. Both are now back to regular duty as patrol officers. The other two officers involved were not put on leave, and continued in their assigned roles, the department said.
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