Aurora police officer stabbed in head, suspect killed in shooting; "Thank God our officer is not dead," chief says
A veteran Aurora police officer was stabbed in the head and seriously injured and the 23-year-old male suspect was shot and killed on Thursday outside an apartment building, police officials say. Aurora Police Officer Todd Chamberlain said the suspect was experiencing a mental health crisis at the time.
"I thank God, and I am serious about that, that our officer is not dead," Chamberlain said in an evening news conference. "I thank God that our officer is in surgery, and I am so thankful that he survived this."
It happened late in the afternoon on the 14000 block of East Stanford Circle. That's close to the intersection of East Quincy Avenue and South Parker Road, and not far from East Smoky Hill Road, to the east of Cherry Creek State Park.
The Aurora Police Department said officers and crisis response team members responded to an emergency call "involving an adult man and a relative" around 3:30 p.m. Chamberlain said there was concern that the suspect was suicidal and also possibly a threat to his mother and another apparent family member inside the apartment where he lived.
"It appears (...) that there was a request by Aurora Mental Health that this individual had contact with them prior. There was also a mental health hold that was on this individual," Chamberlain said.
The chief said once they were at the scene, the crisis response team made contact with the suspect's mother and the suspect by phone for a short time. Police officers, including the one who was eventually stabbed, were outside the apartment building at the time or just arriving.
"The clinician began to supply information to our officers that the suspect inside had a knife and that he had threatened to kill himself, kill others, and he also hoped to be killed or kill police officers," Chamberlain said.
Police stayed outside for about 25 minutes while crisis response team members tried to reconnect with the suspect on the phone after their short conversation. The suspect didn't pick up when they tried to contact him several more times. At one point, the chief said the man could be seen by his window holding the knife to his own neck and making violent threats to himself and others.
Then, suddenly, Chamberlain said, the suspect "burst out of his front door and began to run around the corner." He then quickly charged at the officer who was apparently nearest to him and began stabbing him aggressively in the head.
Nearby officers tried to stop the suspect using less-lethal tools like impact munitions and a taser, but the chief said they had no effect.
While he was being stabbed, the officer fired his gun at the suspect from close range, and both of them went down. It wasn't immediately clear Thursday evening how many shots the officer fired.
The suspect was pronounced dead after being taken to a hospital by an ambulance.
The officer who was hurt is a K-9 officer, and he was with his K-9 at the time of the shooting. The dog was hurt, but not badly. The officer's name hasn't been released. He has been with the department since 2002 and with the K-9 unit since 2012.
"I hope that he has the opportunity to return (to the department)," Chamberlain said of the officer. "I hope that he has the ability to recover from this event."
APD posted an image on X showing the knife the suspect used to stab the officer. The photo shows a kitchen knife with blood on it.
Chamberlain said his department will be studying video as part of their investigation into the shooting and will release it to the public at some point in the future. He described the imagery from the video showing the officer getting stabbed repeatedly by a large knife as "absolutely sickening."
The chief took care to point out in his news conference that responding officers "didn't haphazardly force this incident to occur."
"We did everything but force this," he said. "We actually stayed back. We stayed in control, we stayed in containment, and we were working through the process, through communication, through de-escalation, and through a lot of various and different options. The reason this conflict (...) occurred is because that suspect made a very conscious decision to have contact with our officers."