The man shot and killed by Denver police on Nov. 20 after chasing people in Commons Park with an AK-47 semi-automatic rifle and shooting at officers had more than 400 rounds of ammunition on him, Denver Police Department officials said Wednesday.
Police responded to calls of a man with a rifle yelling at a group of people and chasing people near 16th and Platte streets at 3:40 p.m. on Nov. 20.
Officers located the man, later identified by the Denver Office of the Medical Examiner as 42-year-old Joshua Mitchell, sitting on a park bench with the rifle, Cmdr. Matt Clark said at a news conference on Wednesday.
Officers in two police vehicles parked approximately 100 feet from Mitchell, one on a hill and one on a nearby path, Clark said. Body-worn camera footage shows the officer on the hill commanding Mitchell to drop his weapon before Mitchell started firing at the officer, who returned fire.
Two officers fired seven rounds during the shooting, Clark said. Mitchell was pronounced dead at the scene.
Investigators have not found evidence that Mitchell had a larger plan, Clark said, but are still working to obtain information from his cell phone and social media accounts.
What a weird story. So much to unpack here.
400 rounds is nothing to own. Hell, I probably got 2,500+ rounds and shells of assorted crap. I blow through 200 rifle rounds farting around on a Saturday afternoon by myself. But carrying that much 7.62?! Holy shit those look heavy! Loose or in mags, that’s a lot to pack around. (I’m only familiar with the typically smaller AR-15 rounds.)
And he was acting an ass like that? If he was there to kill people, he would have. Smells like suicide by cop. Mentally ill for certain. I loathe squad cars being rolled on mental health emergencies, but this was not one of those times.
The cops only fired 7 rounds?! Fear might drive that many trigger pulls out of me alone, let alone combined with a partner. Finally, some cops with professional restraint. They rolled up, just two of them, and handled a seriously dangerous situation with the rock-bottom minimum of violence. This is worthy of applause.
And no, they won’t find a larger motive. He was simply nuts. They’ll find some crazy, conservative social media, but that’s about it.
Can we also commend the Denver post for some professional journalism here? Every other story about a shooting is like “the tactical assault clips on his body armor (spoiler, it wasn’t body armor) could hold 97 high powered artillery shells each, and his shoulder thing even went up”
Either way, sad this dude couldn’t have found a better way. I’m not generally very pro cop but sometimes they surprise me with justifiable and reasonable use of force.
And no, they won’t find a larger motive. He was simply nuts. They’ll find some crazy, conservative social media, but that’s about it.
That seems to be a motive in and of itself these days.
That’s what you get with not using American made weaponry.
That’s a good looking gun tho
Some cop is going to enjoy taking it home.
