Officers who shot Pueblo man identified

The Pueblo Police Department has released the names of two officers who it says were forced to shoot a man Wednesday morning.

Skyler Manzanares is recovering at a Denver hospital.

Police say the shooting happened at around 1 a.m. in the 1800 block of E. Routt Avenue when officers tried to arrest him.

Officers said they found Manzanares in a backyard, and that he pulled a gun on them.

The officers were identified as Jose Medina and David Mattarocci.

Medina has been with the police department for five years and eight months. Mattarocci has been with the police department for one year and eight months. Both are assigned to patrol and are on paid administrative leave.

The officers were looking for Manzanares because he faces charges of contempt of court, robbery and possession of a controlled substance.

“He has a significant amount of stuff on his background history,” said Pueblo Police Department Sgt. Eric Gonzales.

Gonzales says these situations are some of the most stressful times for officers.

“It’s stressful, it is scary and that’s one of the reasons why the officers have time off,” said Gonzales.

This is the third officer involved shooting in Pueblo this year. Officers receive training every year on that split- second decision of shoot or don’t shoot.

“They learn about when they can shoot, when they can’t shoot, and they’re also put through scenarios with actual weapons that don’t shoot live rounds,” Gonzales said.

The training can never fully prepare the officers, no matter how extensive.

“You can never really prepare for something like this, once it happens, it just happens in the spur of a moment,” said Gonzales.

Now, a team led by the Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office is looking into what happened Wednesday morning on East Routt Avenue.

“Each investigation is usually different, so it just depends on how it’s progressing until we find out,” said Gonzales.