One shot, killed by police; Southeast Colorado Springs neighbors shaken
Warning: The video includes loud gunshots and might be disturbing to some viewers.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – The Colorado Springs Police Department has confirmed that one person is dead following an overnight police shooting at the Antero Apartment complex in eastern Colorado Springs.
CSPD said they received a report of shots fired just after 1 a.m. in the 1400 block of Michelle Court, just north of East Fountain Boulevard near the Colorado Springs Airport.
According to the department, they arrived on the scene to find a man holding a gun.
CSPD said officers ordered the man to drop the gun, but he instead raised the weapon toward the officers and fired at least one shot, leading officers to respond with "at least one shot each," striking the man.
The department has confirmed that the unidentified suspect died at the scene and said no officers or community members were injured in the shooting.
A witness living at the complex tells KRDO13 that he woke to gunshots around 1 a.m. on June 23. He said two or three bullets hit his apartment. He said he looked out his window and saw the suspect fall dead after police returned fire.
"For me, it's the first time I've actually heard gunfire here. Being ex-military, I'm very familiar with the sound. That's what put me on alert. And I thought, 'let's take a peek in that.' So, at that point, I had no idea that the rounds had struck the apartment," witness Stewart McQuillan said.
He said an officer told him one of the bullets almost made it through his bedroom wall.
"Fairly close, according to one officer, to my bedroom window. I was not let out [of my apartment] onto the property because it was technically a scene they wanted to keep clean."
A different resident in the Antero Apartment complex shared the doorbell camera footage with KRDO13.
That witness told KRDO13 she was doing laundry when she heard the initial shots that likely prompted the 9-1-1 call.
She said she spoke with an officer when police first arrived on the scene before the exchange of gunfire, while a man watched the two of them from his balcony. She said an officer later told her he was the suspect who died. She said he lived at the apartment complex and often saw him standing out on his balcony.
The El Paso County Sheriff's Office (EPSO) took on the investigation since Colorado Springs police responded to the initial shots-fired call. Deputies were on scene for around 12 hours investigating the shooting. EPSO said they are not releasing any further information as this is an ongoing investigation.
KRDO13 spoke with neighbors later Monday afternoon, who said they were unsettled by the events that occurred at their apartment complex earlier that morning.
One neighbor, still shaking hours after the incident, said they were so grateful a stray bullet didn't go into their front room since they were sleeping nearby. Their outer wall was riddled with bullet holes. The neighbor even showed KRDO13 the bullet hole left behind from the shot that had gone straight through their storage closet.
Others in the complex pointed to their shattered windshields, later marked as evidence.
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