Man shot, killed by deputies in Jefferson County

A man is dead after two deputies opened fire Thursday night in Jefferson County.

The shooting happened on Kipling Street near Interstate 70 after a deputy found a disabled vehicle in the northbound lanes of Kipling Street at about 11:15 p.m. Thursday, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office.

A deputy noticed that the license plates had long been expired and attempted a traffic stop. The deputy called for backup and when backup arrived, a male driver and woman passenger exited the vehicle, ignoring commands to get back in the vehicle.

The deputies attempted de-escalation, but the male suspect fired upon them," the office said in the press release. Two deputies fired their weapons at a man, hitting him "multiple" times. No bystanders were injured.

The deputies and responding medical personnel attempted first aid on the suspect before he was transported to a nearby hospital, where he died.

Investigators are interviewing the woman regarding the incident, according to the sheriff's office and the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office. The Critical Incident Response Team will continue investigating the officer-involved shooting.

Deputies did find two handguns belonging to the suspect at the scene of the shooting, the sheriff's office said. The man had a warrant out for his arrest for first-degree attempted murder with extreme indifference.

The Jefferson County Sheriff's Office refused to release the identification of the man Friday.

Honestly, it's been decades," Douglas County Sheriff Darren Weekly said at the Thursday press conference about the arrival of phone and internet scams. "It's a lot easier to scam people out of their money, to convince them to remove money from their accounts, or to steal their identity, than it is to stick a gun in their face."

Weekly, along with chiefs from the Lone Tree, Castle Rock and Parker Police departments met to explain the ongoing scams and how they are affecting innocent locals.

The press conference followed the arrest of 26-year-old Sagar Jayeshkuma Patel of New Jersey on fraud charges after he allegedly stole more than $120,000 in gold bars from a 79-year-old woman in July of 2023.

According to Weekly, the woman received a popup on her computer that said she had a virus and needed to call an 888 number. Once called, Patel identified himself as a federal agent and said her bank account had been compromised.

Patel convinced the woman to buy two gold bars and give them to him at a convenience store in Littleton, continuing the guise that he was a federal agent and that the woman should not contact any other law enforcement.

The suspect allegedly attempted to get more financial information from her after the exchange, but the victim called her bank and they informed her to cut communication.

The Douglas County Sheriff's Office declined to release court records detailing Patel's arrest, citing the ongoing investigations.

Weekly noted that only around 1% of these cases usually end in arrests due to the complexity of the situation and schemes.

"The variety of it is just unbelievable and the tenacity of the suspects and what they're doing," Lone Tree Police Chief Kirk Wilson said of the variety of phone and email scams. "I probably get a text message every single day right now on my personal phone asking me to do something."

Wilson added that Lone Tree has also seen cases such as the gold bar scam. He spoke of a scam the department saw where a person posed as another on a relationship website, then built a fake affair with the victim to convince them to send money.

From text messages to emails claiming unpaid charges to government agencies or compromised bank accounts, the avenues are endless and increasingly brazen. And, according to officials, they tend to target older people by establishing fake emergencies.