Arvada police Monday named a 31-year-old man a suspect in the fatal shooting of one of its officers over the weekend. Police say Sonny Thomas Almanza shot and killed Officer Dillon Michael Vakoff while he was responding to a call shortly before 2 a.m. Sunday outside a home near the city’s border with Denver and […]
Arvada Police Department
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
No charges to be filed against officer who killed good Samaritan in Olde Town Arvada shooting
No charges will be filed against the police officer who fatally shot a good Samaritan credited with saving the lives of people in Arvada’s Olde Town Square this summer. The Arvada officer, Kraig Brownlow, was legally justified when he shot Johnny Hurley, who was armed, in June as police responded to the shooting that also […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Student arrested at Arvada High School after police find pistol
School resource officers with the Arvada Police Department arrested an armed student without incident at Arvada High School on Tuesday. A tweet from the police department said officers and the Jefferson County R-1 School District received a report that a student was on campus with a gun. The tweet said authorities found a pistol and […]
Posted inNews
Security workers called in to protect Jefferson County mobile coronavirus vaccine clinics
GOLDEN — Security workers will accompany nurses and staff members of Jefferson County Public Health’s three mobile vaccine units for the foreseeable future after months of harassment and abuse. Last weekend, the agency was forced to pull vans off the street after a driver in Gilpin County, who contracts Jefferson County’s health agency, drove towards […]
Posted inColoradans, Crime and Courts, News
Slain Arvada officer Gordon Beesley had “fundamental goodness”
By Colleen Slevin, The Associated Press An Arvada police officer who was fatally shot last week by a man investigators say was intent on killing as many officers as possible was remembered Tuesday as someone with “fundamental goodness” who knew how to love others, whether it was his wife and two teenage sons or a […]
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Littwin: The tragedy in Arvada — the death of both the cop and the good Samaritan — is even worse than we imagined
The tragedy that played out in Arvada last Monday began with a phone call to the police from Ronald Troyke’s brother, warning them that Troyke was about to “do something crazy.” The warning was sadly prescient. And in America, the man who sets out to do something crazy too often does so with the aid […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Arvada officer killed in Olde Town shooting was targeted in ambush, police chief says
A police officer fatally shot in Olde Town Arvada on Monday afternoon was targeted in an ambush-style attack because he was wearing his uniform, according to the Arvada Police Department’s chief. Chief Link Strate said that the suspected shooter, 59-year-old Ronald Troyke, expressed hatred toward law enforcement. Strate declined to provide more details about the […]
Posted inCrime and Courts, News
Three people killed — including police officer, suspect — in Olde Town Arvada shooting
ARVADA —Three people were killed, including a veteran police officer and the suspected gunman, in a shooting in Olde Town Arvada on Monday afternoon. Gunfire broke out in the popular shopping and entertainment district northwest of Denver at about 1:30 p.m. The shooting happened after police were called to check out a suspicious person in […]