By Lauren Penington and Noelle Phillips
Source The Denver Post
A man is dead Wednesday morning after a Thornton shooting that injured two police officers in Orchard Farms.
Thornton Police Department spokesperson Greg Reeves said the suspect came out of the house with a long rifle and shot at officers around 9 a.m., injuring two. That’s when officers returned fire and shot the suspect.
When Thornton police officers and SWAT entered the house, they found the unidentified man’s body, Reeves said. Investigators are unsure if he was killed by the officers’ gunfire or if the fatal wound was self-inflicted.
Reeves said police believe the man lived in the Orchard Farms house and that he was the only person inside the home.
Missy Kramer, who lives across from the house on Columbine Street, said a mother and her adult son lived in the house.
“They kept to themselves,” Kramer said.
Kramer was rattled by the shooting so close to her house and her hands trembled as she spoke.
The Lewis family was driving home after dropping their daughter off at school Wednesday morning and saw fire trucks and EMS vans in the neighborhood. Their 5-year-old son, William, was excited by the rescue workers and asked to get a closer look.
But as they pulled closer they saw three police officers with rifles crouched behind a truck, Katie Lewis, 38, said. She said she heard popping but didn’t realize it could be gunfire.
“It was denial,” she said. “I didn’t think it was gunfire, just noises you hear out and about.”
They turned around and went home to check the neighborhood Facebook group.
“We didn’t realize how serious it was until we got home,” she said.
Thornton police responded around 8 a.m. Wednesday to reports of shots fired in the 16000 block of Columbine Street in northern Thornton’s Orchard Farms subdivision. Reeves said a man out walking his dog called police after he heard “popping” sounds coming from inside the home.
Nicole Duncan, 48, lives about two blocks from the house where gunfire erupted Wednesday. Duncan heard multiple shots coming from the house but didn’t see anyone get hit.
“I walk the neighborhood daily and I feel safe,” Duncan said. “I can’t imagine being the first person who heard it while walking a dog and calling the police.”
The fairly new subdivision is just off Colorado 7 and York Street and is surrounded by fields, horses and farms. Yards are filled with pretend gravestones and inflatable, green slime monsters as neighbors compete in the subdivision’s Halloween decorating contest.
Gunshots continued to echo from inside the home for more than two hours Wednesday between when officers arrived around 8 a.m. and when the threat was cleared at 10:37 a.m., police said.
Two Thornton officers were shot and received medical treatment on scene, Reeves said. Each was sent to a different hospital in stable condition with non-life-threatening injuries.
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