Having officers fire their handguns at two unrelated suspects in one day is extraordinary enough. It's now happened in Denver twice in the last four months.
"Certainly a concern, certainly a concern," said Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas at a press conference to discuss a pair of officer shootings that both occurred on Oct. 19.
The first incident started at around 2:35 p.m. in the area of 46th North Avenue and York Street. Police responded to calls that a man was pointing a firearm at people, and had shot the exterior of a nearby Burger King. It was later discovered the gun was an air pistol made to mimic a real firearm.
Officers arrived on the scene and attempted to communicate with the man, identified as 36-year-old Ruben Saenz. He disregarded the officer's commands and yelled, "shoot me, shoot me."
Saenz was in the middle of the road walking backward facing a group of officers. He raised the firearm, then lowered it.
"A few seconds later, the suspect raised his right hand, which had the gun and he pointed the firearm directly at the officers in the roadway," said DPD Major Crimes Division Commander Matt Clark. "The officers feared he was preparing to shoot at them and they discharged their firearms."
Saenz was hit multiple times in the arm and torso, and is expected to survive. He was charged with seven counts of menacing.
Saenz has a long criminal history, mostly in Alamosa and Huerfano Counties, felony convictions for menacing, burglary and trespassing, according to records from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.
Who the officers were, and what their next steps are
A total of four officers on scene fired at Saenz, all have been placed on modified duty until they complete a "reintegration program" which takes at least eight weeks and helps officers with their mental well-being and fitness for full duties.
The officers were not identified. One was a plainclothes undercover detective, who had been with the force for 30 years and was involved in a shooting back in 1997. The other three officers were assigned to District Two patrol. One has been with the department since 2019 and was involved in a 2021 shooting incident. The other two have been with the department since 2022 and have no prior shootings.
Eventually, all will return to the scene, "which is an important aspect, take them back to the scene in a controlled environment so that we can see how they're responding to that scenario as well and then they transition back into the district," Clark said.
The second incident
Less than four hours later on Oct. 19 at about 6:15 p.m., a man walked into the Whole Foods by Union Station. A Denver Police officer working in the store noticed that the man, Latif Robinson, 33, "seemed out of it," Clark said.
Robinson can be seen on store surveillance grabbing a "large butcher-style knife" from a food prep area by the bakery. An officer attempted to talk to Robinson, offering him food and place to stay, somewhere to sit and charge his phone.
As other officers arrived on scene, Robinson was moving around the bakery section of the store and at one point pressed the knife into his chest slightly.
"The officers requested available on-duty mental health resources respond to the location," Clark said. "The way this situation developed, however, was quicker than the resources were able to respond to the location, so there were no mental health clinicians at the scene at the time."
After 12 minutes of "unfruitful communication efforts," Robinson began moving towards the officers in the store.
"This was different, and the officers recognized he seemed intentional in his movement as he began directing towards these officers," Clark said. "Fearing he may be preparing to use the knife to assault an officer, one officer discharged a taser and another officer discharged a firearm. This occurred nearly simultaneously."
The Taser hit Robinson and he fell to the ground. The bullet missed him and hit the glass panel of a freezer in the store. Clark said that once Robinson was medically cleared, he was held for investigation of felony menacing.
Robinson has no criminal history in Colorado according to a search of CBI's database.
"We are working with the District Attorney's office as well as our internal mental health resources and WellPower (the city's largest mental health services provider) to determine what mental health treatment options are available for him," Clark said.
The officer who fired at Robinson is also on modified duty until completing the reintegration program. She's been with the department since 2020 and has no prior police shooting incidents.
In June, another day with a pair of officer shootings
Roughly four months ago, Clark and Thomas briefed the media on a pair of officer shootings on June 7, in which officers in two separate incidents were shot. That day one of the assailants was killed when an officer returned fire, in the other incident the suspect was shot but survived.
At the time Thomas said that he had never seen two officers injured in separate shootings on the same day. None of the officers in the Oct. 19 incidents were injured.
Thomas said this string of incidents has him concerned for the safety of the public and his officers, and he worries particularly about the proliferation of guns. He said the department has recovered about 1,800 illegal guns so far this year, "more than any other year previously," Thomas said.
"And thankfully the overwhelming majority of those incidents are managed without anybody having to use force," Thomas added.
"I don't think that it's anything that any officer looks forward to doing, having to use force, but I trust that the women and men that go out and perform this job every day do so with the intention to protect the community."
