Early Monday morning, an incident involving Aurora police officers and a teenager escalated into a shooting, which left the young individual wounded. Around 3:15 a.m., officers had been patrolling the 1000 block of S. Elkhart Way when they reported a 16-year-old "prowling" in the vicinity, according to Aurora Police Department's Chief of the Investigations Division Mark Hildebrand. After an attempted contact resulted in a brief pursuit, the situation took a grave turn, leading to the discharge of an officer's weapon.
The officers discovered the teenager again attempting to hide behind vehicles and tree cover in a nearby parking lot, as reported by Denver7. Mark Hildebrand detailed that the officers had to quickly try and create space when the teenager "approached officers at a very fast pace." Their commands went unheeded, which culminated in one officer firing his gun to presumably prevent an imminent threat. The shot struck the teenager in the leg, and it was only after this that he dropped a knife he was carrying, complied with the officers, and was subsequently taken to The Medical Center of Aurora with non-life-threatening injuries.
No Aurora officers were reported injured during the altercation, and the specific details surrounding the events leading up to the teenager's shooting remain sparse. KDVR reports that the circumstances that initiated the engagement between officers and the teenager, as well as the sequence of actions that unfolded thereafter, are under thorough investigation. The public is awaiting more information, which has so far been minimal.
Following department policy, the involved officer has been placed on administrative leave. An independent investigation into the shooting will be led by the 18th Judicial District Critical Incident Response Team, corroborated both by The Denver Post and Denver7. Furthermore, the Aurora Police Department is set to conduct an internal investigation to comprehensively review the situation. This is not the first encounter between the Aurora Police Department and the injured teenager, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, revealed Hildebrand.
The aftermath of the event, which took place near the intersection of East Mississippi Avenue and South Chambers Road, saw the vicinity of Sunny Side Condominiums cordoned off, though no major road closures were reported, according to scene updates by Denver7 journalist Allie Jennerjahn. As this story develops, more information is expected to emerge regarding the unfortunate shooting of the teenager by Aurora police.
