Richard Black Jr., a Purple Heart recipient, was shot by an Aurora police officer after he shot a home intruder. Photo / Family
Richard Black Jr., a Purple Heart recipient, was shot by an Aurora police officer after he shot a home intruder. Photo / Family
The flurry of emergency calls went out to the Aurora Police Department yesterday, advising authorities that there was something wrong on a tree-lined street in the Colorado city.
One call was very specific and dire: A woman said an intruder was breaking into her home in the middle of the night.
Officers arrived on scene and heard muffled gunshots from inside the home, sparking bedlam in the east Denver suburb.
Police encountered a man with a gun. The officer shot him, authorities later said in a statement.
Officers then fanned out inside the house searching room to room for any other possible suspects or victims. They discovered a man sprawled on a bathroom floor, shot dead.
At some point, the officers came to a grim realisation.
The man in the bathroom was the alleged intruder, who was killed by the man police had just fatally shot in what Police Chief Nick Metz called a "very chaotic and violent" incident.
Authorities have revealed the involved officer was reassigned to other duties with pay.
The family's lawyer, Qusair Mohamedbhai has revealed that the victim was Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart and Bronze Star winner Richard "Gary" Black Jr.
Richard Black Jr., a Purple Heart recipient, was shot by an Aurora police officer after he shot a home intruder. Photo / Family
Gary was protecting his family when he was killed, according to Mohamedbhai. The accused broke into the Blacks' home, yanked his 11-year-old grandson out of bed and started choking him in a bathtub. Black and the boy's dad came to the boy's rescue. After a struggle, Black shot and killed the intruder.
Among those who called 911 was Jeanette Black, and she gave dispatchers a very specific description of her husband and what he was wearing, Mohamedbhai said.
The intruder seriously injured the child, but the injuries were not life-threatening, Metz said.
A neighbour, Brad Maestas, told the Denver Post he heard the initial gunshots and armed himself until he saw police swarm nearby. He watched paramedics take away the victim on a gurney.
"He was a family man - a grandpa that was protecting his family," Maestas told the paper, which also did not identify the man. "It's messed up."
The Denver Police Department is assisting with the investigation, Aurora police spokesperson Kenneth Forrest said.
Many details remain unclear. The department did not say if the victim was killed by police inside or outside his home, or if he tried to identify himself as a resident before police shot him.
Aurora police also did not say if the victim was handcuffed or provided medical aid before he was taken to a hospital, where he later died. It was also not clear how long it took officers to determine they had killed the wrong person.
