Deputy chief among 2 officers shot in gun battle

WESTMINSTER - Two police officers were shot and two suspects were killed after a chase ended in an exchange in gunfire around midday Thursday.

Witnesses say the suspects were shooting at officers during the chase, leaning out of the car windows.

Westminster Police says the ordeal began around 11:50 a.m. when the two suspects, a man and a woman, robbed a bank near 120th Avenue and Sheridan. Later, an officer spotted their vehicle near 104th Avenue and Federal Boulevard in the Safeway parking lot and that is when the chase began.

Westminster Police spokesman Trevor Materasso says the man and woman began shooting when officers tried to contact them.

"Suspects were firing from their vehicle during the pursuit as the vehicle was moving," Materasso said.

"Couple cop cars just zipped past me," Darious Pearson, a witness, said.

"We saw one cop car streak across the street and I didn't think much of it, I just thought someone was getting chased," Carson Voss, another witness, said.

He says both the man and the woman were armed with handguns as they walked into the 1st Bank earlier Thursday morning and made off with an undisclosed amount of money.

Materasso says the chase went north on Federal back toward 120th when an officer used a PIT maneuver to spin out and stop the suspects' car. But that did not stop them from shooting and Materasso says that is when police and the suspects engaged in a gun battle.

"They started firing when our officers tried to stop them," he said. "I don't know whether it was the driver, passenger or both. I don't know who exchanged the rounds, or fired at our officers while that pursuit occurred."

"All these cops got out and they were just shooting, shooting, shooting," one unidentified witness said.

Matarasso says Senior Police Officer Sean Chandler, who joined the department in 1998, was shot in the hip and taken to St. Anthony Central hospital where he is in stable condition.

Deputy Police Chief Tim Carlson, who joined the department in 1987, was the other officer who was shot. He was grazed in the hip, but he was treated at the scene and was not hospitalized.

Materasso says the officers were in separate vehicles.

Police say the male suspect, who was driving the car, was killed and pronounced dead at the scene. The woman, who was the passenger, was pronounced dead later at the hospital. Their names were not released.

Investigators say the car they were in, a Subaru, was rented.

"It's very dangerous. There's businesses in the area that you can see over my shoulder where the suspects' vehicle finally came to rest," Materasso said. "Just to the north of that is a shopping center, a shopping complex where people were enjoying their day, having lunch, going about their business while rounds are being fired."

Materasso says the shopping center was roped off as part of the investigation, but he did not have any other details. There were numerous cones which marked evidence in which police were interested. Among the items the cones marked were shell casings.

Witnesses say they saw bullets ricochet off a nearby store and some drivers pulled over during the chase because they were afraid they were going to be shot.

"I had the windows up and I had the radio on - it sounded like a machine gun, just boom, boom, boom, boom, over and over. It was weird," Janie Terrell, a witness, said.

"I heard three loud bangs and one of them, I think hit the back of the house, I haven't looked yet but there were loud concussions. I saw one guy with his arm out window looking back and the gun was kind of aimed towards, more towards me than the police officers behind him there," Jeff Sallee, who was at a house in the area, said.

Federal Boulevard was closed from 112th to 120th Avenues due to the shooting, but reopened just before 7 p.m.

Police worked scenes at both 104th and Federal and 120th and Federal. They say there were at least two exchanges of gunfire during the chase.

Jim Reuter, president of the data corporation for 1st Bank, said no one inside the bank was harmed. Reuter said he could not release more details because the investigation is ongoing.

No other suspects are being sought in the incident, according to police.

"When you take two brazen suspects, they go into a bank, they rob it, they display guns; when we try to contact them, they choose to fire and try to shoot at our police officers - that's as dangerous as it gets. That's the most risky to the officers as well as the general public," he said. "That's one of the reasons we will try to pit that vehicle, stop the pursuit as fast as possible. But these are two individuals that needed to be taken into custody. They needed to be captured because of their willingness to brazenly go into a bank, to display weapons, to shoot at a police officer in an attempt to get away."

"It's really scary to know this is what goes on where I live," Pearson said.

According to the FBI, in 2008, there were exactly 150 bank robberies in Colorado, which is average for a year. In 2009, that number has already reached 158, with more than a month to go.