Woman held hostage dies and the suspect is arrested after an hourslong standoff near Denver
Associated Press
BROOMFIELD, Colo. (AP) — A woman was fatally shot Thursday during an over three-hour-long standoff near Denver, where a male suspect was shot by police before being arrested and transported to the hospital with serious injuries, authorities said.
After officers negotiated with the suspect, they forced their way into the apartment at the Arista Flats complex in Broomfield where the 34-year-old man was holding the woman hostage and arrested him, said Rachel Haslett, a spokesperson for the Broomfield Police Department. The woman was transported to a hospital with gunshot wounds. She later died.
Haslett said an officer fired his weapon inside the apartment, but she didn’t say whether it struck anyone. She said she didn’t know how many shots were fired during the standoff but said law enforcement and the suspect did trade fire.
“He was threatening to hurt people,” said Haslett, who didn’t release the suspect’s name and said she didn’t know what weapons he might have used.
Several law enforcement officers fired their weapons, and some received minor injuries, Broomfield police said in a statement Thursday afternoon. They have yet to release the charges against the suspect or the name of the woman who was killed. The statement did not specify who shot the woman.
The standoff took place at the apartment complex as people were getting ready for work in Broomfield, a mostly middle-class city of about 75,000 people roughly 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of Denver.
Authorities sent out a phone alert warning residents to shelter in place or evacuate from the area.
Heather Tallant said she was walking her dog outside her room when something flew over her head and smashed into her bedroom window.
“I saw it hit my window, and that was me just gone,” said Tallant, who ran barefoot from the building past the police line after the shooting ended. “I got shot at,” she said, dropping to sit on the ground.
Nate Schamel, who lives across the street from Arista Flats, said he heard sirens and saw police with rifles across the street who told him to stay inside. An officer later told him to evacuate. As he did, he heard gunfire, he said.
Amy Johnson Kemner, who lives on the floor above the suspect’s, said she was lying in bed when she heard loud banging that sounded like nails being hammered into floorboards.
Kemner said that while going down the stairs, she was met with screams from a SWAT team telling her to go back and barricade herself inside her apartment.
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This story was updated to correct the spelling of Rachel Haslett’s name, which had been misspelled “Hazlett” in once instance.
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Hanson reported from Helena, Montana.
