Suspect in Denver police shooting charged with four counts
Denver Police Department
Five days after Denver police fired into a crowd of bystanders in Lower Downtown, the suspect in the case, Jordan Waddy, has been charged in the incident.
Friday, Denver District Attorney Beth McCann charged Waddy, 21, with three counts of possession of a weapon by a previous offender, a class 5 felony, and one count of third degree assault, a misdemeanor offense.
A statement from McCann’s office described the Denver Police Department’s version of the incident: “On duty Denver Police Department officers approached Waddy whom they suspected of having a gun in his front pocket. Several DPD officers fired at Waddy injuring him and six bystanders during the incident. Officers recovered a loaded firearm from the scene.”
Waddy had his first appearance virtually on Monday in Denver District Court, but has not appeared since then. Denver police say Waddy, of Denver, is still in the hospital.
There are two ongoing investigations into the incident: one into criminal charges against Waddy and the other into the officers’ actions. The second investigation is being done by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, the Colorado State Patrol, the District Attorney’s Office, Internal Affairs and the Office of the Independent Monitor.
Denver Police did not respond to a request for body camera footage. Cmdr. Matt Clark said during a press conference Wednesday they would release the footage after charges had been filed.
Specific to deadly force by officers, its use requires that it does not create a substantial risk of injury to other people, according to the Denver police operations manual. Lethal force is also justified only when other options are unavailable and the person poses an immediate threat.
Officers are trained to have awareness of their target and beyond it, said Cmdr. Matt Clark, the Major Crimes Division head, in a news conference Wednesday.
“The officers are accountable for the rounds they fire, certainly,” he said.
In regular firearms safety training, “there’s specific conversations about knowing the backdrop and potentially mitigating the threat to anybody in the backdrop that can be done by changing positions changing trajectory of your round, limiting the number of rounds that are fired so as to prevent rounds going downrange.”
Denver Gazette reporters Julia Cardi and Dennis Huspeni contributed to this report.




