DENVER — The man who was shot by at least one Denver police officer late Monday night at an apartment complex in the 1200 block of Galapago Street died from his injuries, Denver police said in a tweet.
That man has since been identified as 40-year-old David Litton, according to the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner.
According to Denver police Division Chief Ron Saunier, officers received a call from a concerned neighbor around 10 p.m. Monday. The neighbor told officers they heard a person inside an apartment making threats to shoot another person, who was also inside the apartment, Saunier said during a media briefing.
When officers arrived, they set up a perimeter around the apartment building. About an hour later, a man came out and was armed with what officers believed to be a black handgun, according to the division chief. Multiple officers fired their weapons, the division chief said. The suspect, identified as 40-year-old David Litton, was struck at least once and transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. No officers were injured during the shooting.
"It is unknown at this time if the suspect fired shots," Saunier said during an early morning media briefing.
Police originally called the situation a domestic dispute. The division chief later clarified and said it was a family situation, but could not confirm the relationship of those involved.
The incident happened on the fourth floor of the complex, police said.
"It's something that you have to kind of tactically deal with," Saunier said. "We have some safety equipment that was brought in that was used to try to afford the officers some more cover and stuff but as anybody knows going down a hallway there's not a lot of cover for officers to seek."
Cruz Arias, a 20-year-old CU Denver student, said he heard a gunshot and wished he had information about what was happening just a few doors down from his apartment.
“If I had a notification telling me that I should stay indoors and not worry about it, that it was being taken care of and that I had security, that would have been incredible,” Arias said. “Because at that point I was just fearing for my life, who knows what could have gone wrong.”
Police didn’t send out a reverse 911 call or text because, according to Denver Police Spokesperson Sonny Jackson, different people needed to hear different messages. Jackson said they evacuated the immediate neighbors of the suspect because officers needed to tell them exactly where to go.
“We don’t want to cause chaos either and have everybody all of a sudden exiting or moving,” Jackson said. “We prefer people in these cases to shelter in place until you’ve been told to move or take an action.”
Just over 2,000 people in Denver have signed up to receive reverse 911 notifications from Denver Police on their cell phones. Residents with a listed landline automatically get a reverse 911 call, but people in Denver only get alerts on their cell if they register with SWIFT911.
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