Jeffrey Pelle, one of the Douglas County Sheriff’s deputies injured in Sunday’s shooting in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, was seen giving a thumbs up in a photo from his hospital bed.
Sheriff Pelle (Boulder SO), Deputy Pelle (Douglas SO), and family, earlier this afternoon. #CopperCanyonOIS pic.twitter.com/24ltoj6YpP
— BoulderCountySheriff (@BldrCOSheriff) December 31, 2017
The Boulder County Sheriff’s Office posted the photo, showing the 32-year-old with his family and his father, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle.
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Pelle was one of four police officers injured in the shooting at the Copper Canyon Apartments Sunday. The others were Dep. Mike Doyle, 28; Dep. Taylor Davis, 30; and Castle Rock PD officer Tom O’Donnell, 41.
A fourth deputy, Dep. Zackari Parrish, 29, was killed. He is survived by his wife and two young children, and was a deputy for seven months. Two civilians were injured in the shooting.
The deputies arrived at the apartment complex, where they were ambushed by the suspect. Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock told the Denver Post that the gunman used a rifle, firing at least 100 rounds at the deputies. The gunman was killed in a shootout with police.
The four deputies were immediately shot at when they arrived, and called for backup.
“They all went down, almost within seconds of each other,” Spurlock told the media. “When [Parrish] was shot, and went down, the other officers went down right around him. They tried to pull him out but were unable to due to their injuries.”
Spurlock said the deputies “all went down within seconds of each other,” and called it an “ambush type of attack.”
Officers went to the apartments twice on Sunday. They first responded to a noise complaint at 1:30 a.m., but didn’t hear anything when they got there. At 5:14 a.m., they arrived again, responding to a domestic dispute.
When they arrived, there were two men in the apartment – the gunman and his roommate. While the officers talked with them, the gunman barricaded himself in his bedroom and started firing. The roommate is cooperating with investigators, Spurlock said.
The gunman was identified as 37-year-old Matthew Riehl, according to sources for Denver7.
Photo credit: Twitter/ Boulder County Sheriff’s Office
