Deputy-Involved Chief Motel Shooting Justified
A deputy-involved shooting in September has been declared justified.
The incident happened on Sept. 13. Three El Paso County Sheriff Deputies in the Office Crime Reduction Unit were in the area of the Chief Motel, located at 1624 South Nevada Avenue, looking for a fugitive.
They approached a sedan with information that someone in the car was a wanted fugitive, 27-year-old Christen Vargas. Vargas was wanted on four active felony warrants and considered to be an escapee from Community Corrections Facility.
The car was occupied by four individuals. Unknown to the deputies at the time, the sedan was reported stolen two weeks prior to the shooting and was affixed with a stolen license plate assigned to a different Hyundai vehicle.
Deputies asked the driver, who resembled Vargas, to turn off the car. The passenger in the car continued to reach inside the neckline of her shirt, despite repeated requests by the deputy to stop this action.
The Deputies ordered the driver to put the car in park and turn off the engine. The driver appeared to put the car in park, but, within seconds, she placed the car back in drive and rapidly accelerated. All three deputies attempted to physically back away from the vehicle. The vehicle turned into Deputy Marcus Miller and ran over his foot.
According to the District Attorney’s release, Deputy Miller feared that if the vehicle continued on its path, he would be knocked down and run over or pulled underneath the car. He fired a single round through the open driver’s side window and struck Vargas.
The front seat passenger pulled Ms. Vargas out of the driver’s seat and eluded a deputy during a high speed chase in the Broadmoor area of the City. Surveillance video confirms the vehicle was abandoned one hour later in the parking garage of Memorial Hospital with Vargas in the backseat. The car was not discovered until an anonymous 911 call alerted police to the location of Vargas and the stolen vehicle. She was pronounced dead at Memorial Hospital.
An autopsy of Vargas revealed high levels of methamphetamine in her blood.
The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office completed an investigation, in coordination with the Violent Crimes Unit of the Colorado Springs Police Department and determined the shooting was justified.
Deputy Miller stated his objective was to stop the driver from continuing to turn into him and change the course of the vehicle so that he could retreat to a safe distance. The Major Accident Unit of the Colorado Springs Police Department completed a computer simulation and re-creation taking into account the specifications of this model of Hyundai and its turning radius. This simulation concluded that Deputy Miller could potentially have been run over or drug underneath the car if the car continued on its path as it was fleeing from the scene.
Colorado Revised Statutes 18-1-707 provides that an officer is justified in using deadly force if he or she reasonably believes that it is necessary to defend himself or a third person from what he reasonably believes to be the imminent use of deadly physical force.
