AURORA, Colo. — The man who was shot and killed by Aurora police officers outside the nonprofit Brent's Place was carrying a replica of a tactical air rifle, Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain announced during a press conference Monday.
According to the department, Aurora911 received a call about a fight in a parking lot in the 11900 block of East 16th Avenue around 1:55 p.m. About 13 minutes later, the same person called 911 again and reported that one of the men had a firearm.
Chamberlain said the fight began after an alleged carjacking and involved the vehicle's owner and the suspect. The two reportedly rolled around on the ground for about five minutes.
At one point, the suspect grabbed a rock and struck the victim in the head, according to the police chief. The suspect then walked across to the street to a van parked at an apartment complex and pulled out what appeared to be an assault rifle, Chamberlain said.
Two officers arrived on the scene and found a man holding what they believed was a rifle.
"They stated, 'Please drop the weapon. Drop the weapon.' The suspect's response to this de-escalation and this verbal command was to raise the weapon towards the officers," said Chamberlain.
Chamberlain said one of his officers fired two rounds, which struck the man. Police then rendered aid until medical personnel arrived. The man was taken to the hospital, where he later died.
According to Chamberlain, before officers arrived, the man walked up to a woman who was pushing a cart near the complex and "got in a tussle with the cart." The man reportedly told the woman that he was going to kill her.
"When you look at the dynamics of this situation, when you look at the actions of the suspect, the response by our officers was the least amount of force necessary to control an incredibly fluid, unfolding situation," Chamberlain said Monday.
The 17th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team (CIRT) is leading the investigation into the shooting, which will run parallel with an Aurora PD administrative investigation of the incident. The involved officers have been placed on paid administrative leave, per department policy.
Following the shooting, investigators determined that the man was not holding a real firearm. Chamberlain said the believed weapon was instead a "replica of a tactical air rifle [that] looks exactly the same as an authentic AR-15."
When asked if he would consider it a toy gun, Chamberlain said, "I don't know what you would consider that. I don't know how many people have children — when you think of what a toy gun is, I don't know how many people have children, young children, that would give a young child a weapon that looks like this."
Watch the full press conference in the video player below:
Anna Harris identified the man who was shot and killed as her boyfriend, Kory Dillard.
According to Harris, Dillard was a U.S. Army veteran who enrolled in the military after high school. He loved spending time with his family and had many hobbies, including Air Soft.
"It wasn't a weapon. It was an Air Soft toy, still with the toy indicator on it," Harris said of the blue portion of the replica. "I expect the people that roll up on him with those uniforms to know the difference."
Harris said Dillard's time in the military left him with invisible injuries.
"Kory was a great person, but whatever he did for his country while he was in Afghanistan actively haunted him until the day he died," said Harris. "We would call the crisis line. We would try to seek therapy."
She believes substance abuse and a mental health crisis led to the conflict that day.
"What really happened was [police] shot a veteran in his own parking lot, waving his hobby toy while not administering any mental health. Nothing," Harris said.
The City of Aurora has a Crisis Response Team (CRT), which is trained in "de-escalating situations involving a person experiencing a mental health crisis," according to the city's website. A team includes an Aurora PD officer and a mental health clinician from UCHealth.
Chamberlain said Monday that a CRT response typically occurs for "somebody who is despondent, somebody who is depressed, somebody who needs help or medical assistance or needs some type of mental intervention."
"That is not this incident," the police chief said. "It was a violent incident from the very beginning... It started out as a robbery and a fight. It escalated to where now this individual armed himself with what appeared to be an AR weapon, walked up and down the street, completely putting the community at jeopardy."
Chamberlain continued, "I guarantee you [officers] wish that there would have been another alternative, but that alternative wasn't dictated by the officers. That alternative was dictated by the suspect involved in this, and his actions dictated the end result."
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