A man fatally shot by a Denver, Colorado, police officer earlier this month was not armed with a knife but was holding a black marker, reports say.
Local police responded to a domestic call just before 8 p.m. on Aug. 5 involving 36-year-old Brandon Cole, his wife, and child, the Denver Post reported. The neighbor notified authorities about the incident and claimed that Cole pushed the wife out of her wheelchair before “going after” his teenage son, per the outlet.
Graphic body camera footage posted by the local police department shows what happened when officers arrived at the scene. In the first 20 seconds, a woman could be seen sitting on the sidewalk’s curb next to the wheelchair.
“Don’t pull a gun out on my husband, please,” the woman told officers.
The officer asked the woman if she needed medical attention, and she requested an ambulance. Immediately after the exchange, Cole exits a parked car and stands in the middle of the road.
“Let me see your hands,” the officer said.
Cole started shouting and was ordered to “stop.” He was hit with a stun gun while approaching one of the officers. The body camera footage shows then Cole was shot twice. He fell to the ground seconds later.
At a press conference on Monday, Chief Ron Thomas called the incident a “tragedy,” according to reports.
A woman and child were just steps away from where Cole was shot, but The Associate Press reported that they were not injured and had no connection to the incident.
“You can see in the video that when she finally deploys her duty weapon, the person is so close to her that the view of the young child and other person are not even clear to her,” Thomas said, per the outlet. “Certainly, that was a consideration, but there was not much time to act before she was overrun by that individual.”
Police Commander Matt Clark said that the unidentified officer — who has been with the department since 2019 — believed Cole would stab her during the encounter, adding that Cole held the marker “in a threatening manner,” according to The Post.
An investigation into the matter is ongoing.
