A Denver television station reported this evening that the Adams County sheriff's deputy who killed a dog Monday night also killed a 40-year-old man in an incident last year.
Law enforcement sources have identified the deputy as 31-year-old Wilfred A. Europe III, CBS4 said.
Europe shot and killed the 40-year-old man last February as the man reached for a gun during a traffic stop about 10:30 p.m. on Feb. 26 near West 63rd Avenue and Federal Boulevard, according to a Denver Post article.
It later turned out the gun Don Cambron was reaching for on the floor of the car was a pellet gun.
A critical incident team cleared Europe of any wrongdoing in that fatal shooting, saying Europe believed he and his fellow officers faced a life-threatening circumstance. The District Attorney ruled no charges would be filed against Europe.
An Adams County Sheriff's Office spokesman did not return an Examiner.com call for comment today. The department said earlier the dog shooting is being investigated.
Monday night, two deputies responding to a business alarm apparently entered the wrong address in the 5400 block of Tennyson Street and shot an 8-year-old blue heeler/border collie mix named Ziggy .
The dog's owner, Jeff Fisher, said when the deputies entered Ziggy ran outside and a deputy shot his 35-pound dog three times. "They just opened the door and opened fire on my dog," he said.
Jennifer Edwards, the attorney representing Fisher, said today the deputies top 200 pounds each and should have found a non-lethal way to control the dog.
This was the second police shooting of a dog in Denver's northern suburbs in the last month-and-a-half. The other incident was in Commerce City. These shootings and the recent killing of a bull elk by a police officer in Boulder has spurred community anger.
A pro-animal activist said today that she and a member of the Denver group Copwatch have put together a community meeting Sunday afternoon to give people a chance to speak out. It will start at 3 p.m. at Noah's, 11885 N. Bradburn Blvd. inWestminster.
"The reason for the meeting is because the public is outraged at all the recent shootings of people’s pets and wildlife," said the activist, Christie Mueller. "We will not stand for it and we are all coming together to speak and figure out a plan of action."
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