Two Greeley police officers have been cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the May shooting death of a fugitive Park Hill Gangster Bloods member who had told his mother he would commit suicide by cop.
Michael Rourke, the district attorney for the 19th Judicial District, determined the officers had no choice but to shoot 24-year-old Sean Mondragon because he had aimed a handgun and a sawed-off shotgun at them during a chase. Mondragon also had used those weapons to rob three people and hold two hostage outside a Greeley bowling alley and to carjack a driver in Evans, according to a letter Rourke sent Wednesday to Greeley Police Chief Jerry Garner.
“I find that the officers were justified in using lethal force against Mondragon because they reasonably believed that it was necessary to defend themselves and other citizens from Mondragon’s threatened use of deadly physical force, and further, Mondragon had just committed a felony with a deadly weapon,” the letter said.
Rourke declined to name the two officers because of concern for the safety of them and their families because of Mondragon’s ties to the gang.
The officers underwent psychological exams before returning to the streets a week after the shooting, Garner said.
“They’re both doing fine,” Garner said.
Mondragon was on parole from the Colorado Department of Corrections, which had issued an arrest warrant for a parole violation. Mondragon also was wanted for a first-degree assault of a police officer charge, Rourke’s letter said.
When investigators interviewed Mondragon’s mother, she had told them that he was going to commit suicide by cop, the letter said. He had told his mother the previous month that she would not see him again.
On the night of the shooting, Mondragon robbed three people in a bowling alley parking lot and when he didn’t get enough money from them, he held two at gunpoint and ordered the third person to go inside the bowling alley and get money from an ATM.
The third victim asked bowling alley employees to call police. The car chase then started from the bowling alley.
The chase involved speeds over 100 miles per hour, Mondragon pulling guns on officers, multiple collisions and a carjacking at a crowded intersection in Evans, the letter said.
As the two police officers approached Mondragon for the final time, he pointed a handgun at them, the letter said. One police officer saw it. The other told investigators that he shot at Mondragon because he feared for the public’s safety because Mondragon already had threatened people with guns and dangerous driving, the letter said.
One officer fired 12 rounds from a .223 caliber automatic rifle, and the other fired three rounds from a .45-caliber semi-automatic handgun, the letter said. Mondragon suffered six shots to his head.
Garner said Mondragon was a dangerous person and questioned why he was loose after committing parole violations. The robbery and carjacking illustrate what a threat he was to the public.
“It’s not just a question of him being nasty to police officers in a parking lot,” Garner said. “That was a very dangerous guy.”
