An officer from the Denver Police Fugitive Unit has been shot and transported to a local hospital, the Broomfield Police said Thursday afternoon.
The suspect officers tried to arrest died in a shootout at the corner of Sheridan and Midway boulevards about 3 p.m., said Rachel Haslett, public information officer for Broomfield Police.
The officer's condition was reported as stable at the Good Samaritan Medical Center in Lafayette.
Denver's Fugitive Unit officers tracked the suspect, who was wanted in connection with a homicide, to Broomfield.
They located him driving a white car southbound on Sheridan and attempted to stop him. The suspect's car turned left and smashed into a blue car driven by an area resident, Haslett said during a press briefing from the scene Thursday evening.
"At that time, the suspect got out of the white car after it spun out and attempted to take a third vehicle with someone in it by carjacking it," Haslett said. "When that was not successful, the suspect male left on foot and started to run away and fired shots at the Denver officers."
No Broomfield officers were involved in the shooting.
No other injuries were reported.
"These people were innocent victims, so they're very shaken up and we're speaking with them," she said. "We're thankful no more people were injured."
Charlene and Allen Hutton, who live on the corner of Midway and Sheridan, heard the crash and witnessed the aftermath from their balcony.
“We heard tires squealing like they were trying to stop but couldn’t,” Charlene Hutton said. “Then we heard a loud boom like two cars hitting each other, then a lot of gunshots.”
The Huttons said it appeared to be two people firing and thought they heard about 10-12 shots. But they quickly left the balcony after the shooting started and took cover inside.
“This was too close to my experience in Vietnam. I didn’t want to look any closer,” said Allen Hutton, a Vietnam War veteran decorated with a Purple Heart.
Area resident Bill McGee thought he heard knocking at his door, but when he went to check, he quickly realized there was no one there.
“I looked left and ... I saw a policeman shooting and he (the suspect) went down," McGee said.
McGee told his wife, Lisa, to go downstairs to avoid possibly being hit.
"I heard the officer on the ground groaning in serious pain," McGee said. "He sounded pissed off. It was awful and loud."
The McGee’s son usually bikes home from school around the time of the shooting. Fortunately, McGee said, he's a member of the marching band and at practice.
"We're fine, but unnerved," he said. "It blew me away that there were so many police here so fast.”
“This is not Broomfield — it has nothing to do with the neighborhood. These were just bad guys."
Police reported a woman in the suspect's white car, but officers don't know how she was involved.
No identifications or ages of any of the people involved were provided.
Sheridan and Midway boulevards will be closed for hours, as investigators comb the large crime scene for evidence, Haslett said.
"It's going to take some time for investigators to process the scene and try to piece together exactly what happened," she said.
