(ABC news) One sheriff’s deputy was killed and four others shot after police responded to a call about a disturbance at an apartment complex in an affluent suburban county outside of Denver, authorities said. Two other people living in adjacent apartments in the complex were also shot in the incident, and the suspect is dead, police said. Except for the one deputy killed, none of the other victims suffered life-threatening injuries, Douglas County Sheriff Tony Spurlock said at a press conference on Sunday afternoon.
Zack Parrish, 29, had been on the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office as a sheriff’s deputy for only seven months after transferring from Castle Rock Police Department. Spurlock described the deputy as a father with two “young, young children.” The shootings occurred after deputies responded to a call at about 5:15 a.m. to what they thought was a domestic problem at the Copper Canyon Apartment complex, but which turned out to be a disturbance unrelated to any domestic dispute. The sheriff added that it was the second call to address located at 3404 East County Line Road in Highland Park four hours earlier for a noise disturbance call, but he said when they arrived “there was no noise” and “they couldn’t find any evidence there was any issue going on.”
He said on the second call, “the suspect made a ton of noise” and four officers arrived at the same time to investigate what was originally believed to be a domestic disturbance. The officers attempted to talk to the man who was making the noise, and Spurlock said they were even talking and “asking him questions” before he “barricaded himself.””It was almost immediately after that” that the suspect inside a bedroom with a weapon, which Spurlock would only characterize as “a rifle,” started firing on the officers. “All of them were shot very, very quickly,” he said. “They all went down.”
