Gordon Beesley never should have been in a band, The Railbenders frontman Jim Dalton once said. “He’s just too good for this crazy world.”

But Beesley was in a band – several of them, in fact, before finding his true calling as an Arvada police officer in 2002. Beesley was killed in the line of duty on Monday, leaving longtime members of the Denver local music scene and hundreds of their fans numb.

Beesley became the founding drummer of The Railbenders in 2000 after playing for Brethren Fast, Durt and Sponge Kingdom. But as a rocker, Beesley was a fish out of the beer-soaked mop water.

“Gordon was just a pure, warm-hearted, beautiful soul,” said Tommy Nahulu, a Denver muralist and local music mainstay. “He stood out as someone who was genuinely nice.”

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Beesley’s longest stint was in the tragedy-stained Denver funkabilly band Brethren Fast, which was well-known along the Front Range in the 1990s for its relentless touring, relentless partying and its ever-revolving roster of drummers. Beesley joined the trio in 1998 with the release of the album “What in the Hell?” followed by a brief tour through Texas and Florida. The band’s style, self-described as “electrified hillbilly hotrod funk,” ranged from Carl Perkins to Jimi Hendrix to George Clinton to Eddie Vedder. Brethren Fast was twice voted Colorado’s best rock/pop band at the annual Westword Music Awards Showcase.

Brethren Fast was founded in 1994 by guitarist Don Messina with his bassist brother, Mik. The brothers, wrote Jon Solomon of Westword, “liked fast cars, fast motorcycles and fast women.” When Beesley joined the band for the making of “What in the Hell?” Don Messina said in an interview at the time, “Turnover has been a problem for us in the past. But our newest drummer, Gordon Beesley, is going to be with us for a while, I think. He came in, and in just a few weeks he started nailing stuff – and he keeps getting better and better.”

The band recorded the instrumental tracks for that 1998 album at the Messina brothers’ apartment over a warehouse, which they comically referred to at the time as “the Hippie Love Palace.”

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In 2000, Beesley joined Dalton and Tyson Murray to form The Railbenders, which came out strong in its debut and continued to be one of the biggest successes in the Denver music scene.

“Gordon left the brothers because they were just drinking and partying too hard, and their circles started moving away from each other,” Nahulu said. Soon after joining The Railbenders, Beesley earned his way onto the Arvada police force and was replaced by Graham Haworth.

“Gordy’s dream was always to be an Arvada policeman,” Nahulu said. “And not only did he become a cop, he endeavored to become the best cop and the best public servant that he could be.”

Beesley’s death is the latest tragic turn in the story of Brethren Fast, which continued playing through 2010. Don Messina died in a 2015 car crash on Lookout Mountain, and Mik Messina, Nahulu said, is in his final days with organ failure. Mutual friend Kathleen Gordon-Callbeck says Beesley reached out to her on Monday and made plans to visit Mik Messina before it was too late.

Gordon-Callbeck posted to her Facebook page that Beesley called her at 12:52 p.m., perhaps just minutes before he was fatally shot. She wrote, in mostly capital letters: “Gordon Beesley literally just called me today at 12:52 p.m. to catch up from 1998 and talk about visiting Mik! We caught up about a ton and he sounded so happy in his life and the family he has. Then he said suddenly, ‘Kat I have to go. I’ll call back!’ ”

Denver photographer Jennifer Koskinen has known Beesley as a friend and drummer going back to their high school days in Mendham, N.J. “He was a fantastic drummer,” she said. “I remember watching him in awe whenever he played in battle of the bands.” And, she added: “He was one of those deeply good humans with an open heart and a kind smile. He was the only reason I enjoyed chemistry class.”

Another classmate, Camilla Modesitt of the Denver Language School, said, “Gordon sat behind me in math and would drum ‘Walking in L.A.’ on the back of my chair.”

This is how Nahulu summarizes the beloved Oberon Middle School resource officer’s time on the wilder side of life in Denver music: “In the hysteria and madness and serious stupidity of the club scene in those days, Gordon outshined us all as a man. He just lived simply and presently. Of all the people I know, he should have been the one to outlive us all.”