A man was killed, and a Golden police officer was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries after a shootout erupted outside a Circle K gas station on Colfax Avenue early Saturday morning. Police say the officer was struck by gunfire around 2:30 a.m. after responding to a report of a man with a gun at the station, and the man opened fire when officers arrived before they returned fire and struck him.
The man died at the scene, and police have not released his identity, according to the Denver Gazette, which first reported the shooting. The injured officer was taken to a local hospital, per the same report, though further details on the officer's condition and identity have not been made public.
Independent Team Now Reviewing the Shooting
As required under Colorado law, the incident is now under review by the Jefferson County Critical Incident Response Team, a multi-agency unit that investigates police shootings independently of the department involved. That review is being carried out through the First Judicial District's Critical Incident Response Team, or CIRT, which was established in 1990 to serve Jefferson and Gilpin counties and is tasked with collecting crime scene evidence, securing weapons involved in the incident, and reporting its findings directly to the First Judicial District Attorney's Office.
The involvement of an outside team is not optional. Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 16-2.5-301, every law enforcement agency and district attorney in the state must maintain protocols requiring an independent multi-agency team — including at least one outside agency or the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — to review any officer-involved shooting that results in injury or death. The law was enacted specifically to guard against conflicts of interest when local police use deadly force.
If the district attorney ultimately determines that no charges should be filed against the officers involved, state law does not allow that decision to stay behind closed doors. Under Colorado Revised Statutes § 20-1-114, prosecutors are required to publish a detailed written report explaining the legal basis for their findings, ensuring the outcome of deadly-force reviews remains publicly accessible.
This is not the first time Golden has seen the CIRT activated. In October 2015, the team investigated after an off-duty officer's weapon was discharged during a road rage dispute in the city, a reminder that the multi-agency process is a routine, if rare, feature of local policing when firearms are involved.
A Department Already Tested by Tragedy
Saturday's shooting lands during an especially difficult stretch for the Golden Police Department. Chief Joe Harvey retired in February after leading the department since 2023, stepping down following a leave of absence that he attributed to the toll of recent department tragedies, according to Colorado Politics. His departure came shortly after a driver was sentenced for a fatal 2024 crash involving a Golden officer.
That crash killed Officer Evan Dunn in November 2024 as he responded to an earlier collision on Highway 58 and was struck by an impaired driver at the scene. As 9News reported at the time, Dunn's death marked the first line-of-duty death in the Golden Police Department's history since 1940.
Golden, a suburban municipal center in western Jefferson County bordering Lakewood and unincorporated parts of the county along Colfax Avenue, relies on a municipal police force to cover a metro-area foothill community. Overnight commercial gas station calls along major corridors like Colfax present persistent tactical risks for officers, a pattern also seen in a 2024 incident in which Denver police engaged an armed suspect during a late-night gas station robbery call, according to Police1.
For now, key details remain unresolved: police have not identified the man who was killed, and it is unclear when body-worn camera or surveillance footage from the Circle K might be released. Those answers, along with the CIRT's formal findings, are expected to come only once the independent review and any subsequent prosecutorial report are complete.
